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50 free South Africa trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
49 free South Africa trivia questions with answers. South Africa has three capital cities, twelve official languages, a flag with six colours and a rugby team with four World Cups, and this quiz covers all of it. The geography questions take in Table Mountain, the Cape of Good Hope (not the southern tip, whatever the postcards say), the Drakensberg, the Blyde River Canyon, Kruger National Park, the Big Five and the two oceans that meet off the coast. The history questions run from the Cradle of Humankind and Bartolomeu Dias to the Dutch at the Cape, the Boer wars, apartheid, Nelson Mandela's 27 years in prison, the 1994 election and Desmond Tutu's Rainbow Nation. There are also rounds on culture and everyday life: braai and boerewors, bunny chow, rooibos, the vuvuzela, Miriam Makeba, Trevor Noah and Charlize Theron, the Krugerrand, the world's first heart transplant, and the 1995 Rugby World Cup and 2010 FIFA World Cup. Easy questions open each theme and harder ones follow. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the country, its people and its landmarks, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01South Africa has three capital cities. Which one is the administrative capital?
Pretoria
Cape Town is the legislative capital as seat of Parliament and Bloemfontein the judicial capital; the Constitutional Court sits in Johannesburg.
Q 02What is South Africa's largest and most populous city?
Johannesburg
Cape Town and Durban come next; Johannesburg's stock exchange is the largest in Africa.
Q 03How many official languages does South Africa have?
12
It was 11 until South African Sign Language was recognised in 2023; Zulu is the most spoken first language.
Q 04Which language is spoken by the largest share of South Africans as a first language?
Zulu
The 2022 census put Zulu at 24.4%, Xhosa at 16.6% and Afrikaans at 10.6%.
Q 05Afrikaans developed mainly from which European language?
Dutch
Around 90-95% of its vocabulary is Dutch in origin, and it was once dismissively called "kitchen Dutch".
Q 06How many provinces does South Africa have?
9
They include Gauteng, the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and Mpumalanga.
Q 07Which small kingdom is completely surrounded by South Africa?
Lesotho
Eswatini borders it to the northeast; the highest stretch of the Drakensberg forms the border with Lesotho.
Q 08Which two oceans meet off the South African coast?
The Atlantic and the Indian
The meeting point drifts between Cape Agulhas and Cape Point.
Q 09What is the actual southernmost point of Africa?
Cape Agulhas
The Cape of Good Hope is about 150 km to the west-northwest; Dias originally called it the Cape of Storms.
Q 10Which Portuguese explorer first rounded the Cape of Good Hope, in 1487-88?
Bartolomeu Dias
He named it Cabo das Tormentas; King John II renamed it for the hope of a sea route to India.
Q 11In what year did the Dutch establish the first European settlement at Table Bay?
1652
Jan van Riebeeck set up a supply station for the Dutch East India Company that grew into Cape Town.
Q 12What is the name of the cloud that often covers Table Mountain's flat top?
The tablecloth
It forms when the south-easterly wind pushes moist air up the slopes; the mountain is one of the New7Wonders of Nature.
Q 13Which two peaks flank Table Mountain's plateau above Cape Town?
Devil's Peak and Lion's Head
With Signal Hill they form the amphitheatre of the City Bowl.
Q 21What is Mandela's Xhosa clan name, by which South Africans affectionately call him?
Madiba
Rolihlahla, his given name, colloquially means "troublemaker"; Dalibunga was the name he received at his initiation.
Q 22In what year was South Africa's first fully democratic election held?
1994
Mandela led the ANC to victory and became the first Black head of state; the new six-colour flag was adopted the same day.
Q 23Which president released Mandela in 1990 and later shared the Nobel Peace Prize with him?
F. W. de Klerk
The two negotiated the end of apartheid; Mandela received more than 250 honours in all.
Q 14What is the highest peak in South Africa?
Mafadi
It stands 3,450 m in the Drakensberg; Thabana Ntlenyana, higher still, is over the border in Lesotho.
Q 15Which South African gorge is the third largest of its kind on Earth and, unusually, green?
Blyde River Canyon
It is in Mpumalanga and passes the Three Rondavels rock formation.
Q 16The country's oldest and largest national park is named after which man?
Paul Kruger, a Boer president
He proposed a game reserve on the Sabi River at a braai in 1892; it became the country's first national park in 1926.
Q 17Which five animals make up Africa's "Big Five"?
Lion, leopard, rhino, elephant and buffalo
Big-game hunters coined the term for the five hardest animals to hunt on foot.
Q 18What is South Africa's national bird?
Blue crane
Most of the remaining population lives in eastern and southern South Africa.
Q 19What is South Africa's national animal, famous for stiff-legged leaps called pronking?
Springbok
The name means "jump buck" in Afrikaans, and it gives its name to the national rugby team.
Q 20How many years did Nelson Mandela spend in prison?
27
Eighteen of them were on Robben Island, before Pollsmoor and Victor Verster; he was released in 1990.
Q 24What does the name of Robben Island, where Mandela was held for 18 years, mean?
Seals
It comes from an old Dutch word for seals; the island was a prison from the 17th century until 1996.
Q 25Which archbishop won the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize and chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission?
Desmond Tutu
He was the first Black African to be Bishop of Johannesburg and Archbishop of Cape Town, and popularised the "rainbow nation".
Q 26In what year did the Union of South Africa become a republic?
1961
The 1910 Union merged four British colonies; a 1961 referendum turned it into a republic with a State President.
Q 27The Second Boer War (1899-1902) was fought between the British Empire and which two republics?
The Transvaal republic and the Orange Free State
Over 100,000 Boer civilians were put in concentration camps, where 26,000 died; the war ended with the Treaty of Vereeniging.
Q 28The discovery of which two minerals in 1867 and 1884 set off South Africa's Mineral Revolution?
Diamonds and gold
Kimberley's diamond fields made Cecil Rhodes rich, and the city got electric street lights in 1882, second only to Philadelphia.
Q 29What is South Africa's currency?
The rand
It is Africa's most traded currency and gives the Krugerrand gold coin half its name.
Q 30What animal appears on the reverse of the Krugerrand gold coin?
A pronking springbok
First minted in 1967, it had over 90% of the world gold-coin market by 1980 and carries no face value.