Environment—current issues: lack of important arterial rivers or lakes requires extensive water conservation and control measures; growth in water usage threatens to outpace supply; pollution of rivers from agricultural runoff and urban discharge; air pollution resulting in acid rain; soil erosion; desertification
Environment—international agreements: party to: Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping, Marine Life Conservation, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Wetlands, Whaling signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements
Geography—note: South Africa completely surrounds Lesotho and almost completely surrounds Swaziland
People
Population: 43,426,386 (July 1999 est.) note: South Africa took a census 10 October 1996 which showed a population of 37,859,000 (after a 6.8% adjustment for underenumeration based on a post-enumeration survey); this figure is still about 10% below projections from earlier censuses; since the full results of that census have not been released for analysis, the numbers shown for South Africa do not take into consideration the results of this 1996 census
Age structure:
0-14 years: 34% (male 7,541,840; female 7,403,235)
15-64 years: 61% (male 13,180,925; female 13,312,917)
65 years and over: 5% (male 798,825; female 1,188,644) (1999 est.)
Population growth rate: 1.32% (1999 est.)
Birth rate: 25.94 births/1,000 population (1999 est.)
Death rate: 12.81 deaths/1,000 population (1999 est.)
Net migration rate: 0.08 migrant(s)/1,000 population (1999 est.)