South Africa
South Africa in numbers
38 measures of South Africa from 1800 to 2025, each charted year by year with where it comes from. Where a source publishes projections, they run on to 2100, drawn apart from the estimates.
Every measure
Health
People
Economy
Education
Politics
Conflict
Military
- Military spending0.74% of GDP in 2025
- Military spending in US dollars$3B in 2025
- Military spending per person$49 in 2025
- Military share of state spending2.2% of government spending in 2025
- Armed forces personnel89,000 people in 2020
- National power0.55% of world capability in 2022
- Armed forces, share of workers0.4% of the labour force in 2020
- Arms imports30 million TIV in 2025
- Arms exports115 million TIV in 2025
Climate
Technology and environment
Compare South Africa with…
- South Africa vs India
- South Africa vs China
- South Africa vs United States
- South Africa vs Indonesia
- South Africa vs Pakistan
- South Africa vs Nigeria
- South Africa vs Brazil
- South Africa vs Bangladesh
- South Africa vs Russia
- South Africa vs Ethiopia
- South Africa vs Mexico
- South Africa vs Japan
- South Africa vs Egypt
- South Africa vs Philippines
- South Africa vs Congo - Kinshasa
- South Africa vs Vietnam
- South Africa vs Iran
- South Africa vs Türkiye
- South Africa vs Germany
- South Africa vs Thailand
- South Africa vs Tanzania
- South Africa vs United Kingdom
- South Africa vs France
- South Africa vs Italy
- South Africa vs Kenya
- South Africa vs Myanmar (Burma)
- South Africa vs Colombia
- South Africa vs South Korea
- South Africa vs Sudan
- South Africa vs Uganda
- South Africa vs Spain
- South Africa vs Argentina
- South Africa vs Canada
- South Africa vs Angola
- South Africa vs Saudi Arabia
- South Africa vs Poland
- South Africa vs Mozambique
- South Africa vs Ghana
- South Africa vs Madagascar
- South Africa vs Côte d’Ivoire
- South Africa vs Cameroon
- South Africa vs Niger
- South Africa vs Australia
- South Africa vs Mali
- South Africa vs Burkina Faso
- South Africa vs Malawi
- South Africa vs Zambia
- South Africa vs Chad
- South Africa vs Somalia
- South Africa vs Senegal
- South Africa vs Netherlands
- South Africa vs Zimbabwe
- South Africa vs Guinea
- South Africa vs Benin
- South Africa vs Rwanda
- South Africa vs Burundi
- South Africa vs South Sudan
- South Africa vs Belgium
- South Africa vs United Arab Emirates
- South Africa vs Sweden
- South Africa vs Israel
- South Africa vs Austria
- South Africa vs Switzerland
- South Africa vs Singapore
- South Africa vs Ireland
- South Africa vs Namibia
- South Africa vs Botswana
- South Africa vs Lesotho
- South Africa vs Eswatini
Good to know
- Sources: UN, Gapminder and UN IGME, IHME, World Bank, IMF, UNESCO, Our World in Data, V-Dem, UCDP, SIPRI, IISS, Correlates of War, ERA5, CMIP6, EDGAR, ITU and FAO. Each measure’s page names its own and what it counts.
- Values are drawn on today’s borders. Years without a published value are left empty, never filled in.
- 2 measures are climate model output, marked as modelled: not measurements.
How the layers work, where their data comes from and what they can’t tell you: Countries through time