South Africa often astonishes the first time visitor. Here are some remarkable facts about South Africa that not many people are aware of:

* The Kruger National Park supports the greatest variety of wildlife species on the African continent
* The Cango Caves near Oudsthoorn is the world's longest underground cave sequence
* South Africa is the only country to house an entire floral kingdom (fynbos), one of only 6 on the planet
* In 1991, South Africa became the first country in the world to protect the Great White shark.
* South Africa has the oldest meteor scar in the world, at the Vredefort Dome near Parys. The scar is 2 billion years old.
* The Cape Hyrax's (dassie) closest relative is the African elephant
* The world's best land-based whale-watching spot is located in Hermanus in the Western Cape.
* Cape Town has the fifth-best blue sky in the world, according to the UK's National Physical Laboratory

* South Africa hosts the largest timed cycle race in the world (the Cape Argus Cycle Tour), the world's oldest and largest ultra-marathon (the Comrades Marathon) and the world's largest open water swimming event (the Midmar Mile).
* South Africa will become the first African country to host the Soccer World Cup in 2010 - and only the second country in the world to have hosted the Cricket, Rugby and Soccer World Cups.
* Since the 1940s, South African golfers have won more golf majors than any other nation, apart from the United States.
* South Africa houses one of the three largest telescopes in the world at Sutherland in the Karoo
* South Africa is the first, and to date the only, country to build nuclear weapons and the voluntarily dismantle its entire nuclear weapons programme

* Afrikaans is the youngest official language in the world
* The Western Deep Levels is the world's deepest mine at 3777 metres
* South Africa has the world's largest deposits of chromium, platinum and manganese
* The only street in the world to house two Nobel Peace Prize winners is in Soweto. Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu both have houses in Vilakazi Street, Orlando West.
* South Africa has the world's second oldest air force, established 1920.
* South Africa has the second oldest film industry in the world
* The University of South Africa UNISA is a pioneer of tertiary distance education and is the largest correspondence university in the world with 250,000 students.
* The first MBA programme outside of the United States was started by the University of Pretoria in 1949.

* The JSE Securities Exchange is the 14th largest equities exchange in the world, with a total market capitalisation of some R2.3 trillion (JSE)
* South Africa generates two-thirds of Africa's electricity (Eskom)
* South African power supplier provides the fourth cheapest electricity in the world
* Chris Hani-Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto is the biggest hospital in the world
* Durban is the largest port in Africa and the ninth largest in the world.
* There are 39 million cell phone users in South Africa (International Telecommunication Union)
* The South African oil company Sasol has established the only commercially viable oil-from-coal operations in the world.
* South African Breweries (SABMiller) ranks as the second largest brewing company in the world. It supplies up to 50% of China's beer.

Source:
South Africa: The Good News
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