₦airaland Forum

The sad part is your pictures doesn't even sell your argument, from now on this "Abuja" thing should stop(I find it irritating) and we should now stick to the topic at hand which is about Cape Town. If you wanna talk about a different city(that includes Pretoria) open a new thread. PLEASE

Best African Cities:
http://www.africaalmanac.com/top20townscitys.html
@paddy-lo
Ive tried to search for Abuja, but it is nowhere near the in best cities in Africa. All what you saying is just opinions not facts. Pretoria and Nairobi is by far beautiful than Abuja. I say that because Ive been to those cities.

Ive been giving you International ratings, give us one foreign rating that places Abuja in the top 10 Africa's best city.

Africa's Best Cities
1. Cape Town, South Africa. Regarded by many people as Africa's best city, when all is said and done, a first-world city in substance and image. The streets of Cape Town, posh, with well-manicured grass; trees,and flower gardens, look more like a park than busy boulevards.

In 2001, it was voted by viewers of the CNN programme Inside Africa as the Best City in Africa, and with generally good reason.

Cape Town conveys a feeling of wide space, of having fewer people per square kilometre than any major city in Africa, of being a location further from the madding crowd than any other in Africa, a city where entry is by invitation only, so to speak.

It almost bears an air of exclusivity, of being the preserve of the upper middle class, of conservative chic, and of being a city that seems almost entirely a residential suburb, a mall, a health club, and a library. It is hard to find any litter and garbage anywhere.

The architecture is outstanding and like much of what there is in South Africa, is based around late 19th century English forms. For example, the parliamentary buildings in Cape Town, seat of the country's national assembly, are white, with columns crowned with beautiful Corinthian capitals.

Other places of note in Cape Town include the Company's Garden. The city is host to the beautiful, fortress-like Castle of Good Hope, which commemorates the birth of western civilization on the African subcontinent in 1652. The Waterfront is a medley of piers, anchored boats and entertainment and shopping places such as the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront shops.

Cape Town has the full range of the amenities for the lifestyle of any of the major western cities --- Opera, symphony orchestra, exquisite international cuisine, from African, to Greek, Indian, Chinese, and Italian.

It is, to put it simply, an exceptional African city, where everything works seamlessly and where standards of living are among the highest in the world.

Apart from its outstanding beauty and modernity, Cape Town has also become, increasingly, the centre of the country's film production industry. Several films and commercial videos have been filmed in Cape Town.

Set at the foot of Table Mountain, this city is much cheaper in costs for the film and advertizing industries than Europe and the United States, and yet offers about the same quality of production, better scenery, hence its rising status as the place of choice in which to shoot advert video clips or film sets.

Cape Town feels like a cousin to California's Beverly Hills area, the city of Sydney in Australia, and Christchurch, New Zealand.

However, because Cape Town is largely the domain of the White South Africans --- with their characteristically European reserve and individuality (and for whom even a trip to the beach on a holiday entails the reading of that week's issue of the Economist magazine) --- it can sometimes feel like a lonely city to live in.

Like most western societies, the impression can dawn on the outsider (especially the Black African, accustomed to the social network of extended family and friends) that plants and animals are more attentively and affectionately attended to in Cape Town, than are people.

Nonetheless, Cape Town is a great place that most people generally agree is Africa's number one city.

2. Victoria, Seychelles. For two years, 1997 and 1998, the capital of the Indian Ocean island nation of the Seychelles was the host city of the Miss World beauty pageant finals, which would be an understatement in describing its other-worldly charm.

Since the year 2000, Victoria --- capital of the smallest country in Africa --- has also become a major getaway for dozens of the world's biggest entertainment stars.

Victoria brings forth images of small, cute, clean, neat, quiet, a place away from the cynicism of the cut-throat commercial world.

Yet, ironically, it could be, per capita, the most expensive city in Africa, the high cost being brought on by the stream of jet-setter celebrities who abode there every once in a while, which really is to say, all year round.

Like Cape Town in South Africa, Victoria presents the impression of the pleasant place to go and be away from the mundane, over-crowded world elsewhere.

Victoria recalls to mind the Tanzanian paradise island of Zanzibar, all coconut trees, blue sky, acres of white sand, shimmering heat, and an inducement of the feeling that 21st century fast-paced digital time and fuss has all been left behind.

Except that Victoria is not fully Zanzibar.

Perhaps because of the combination of tiny population and an economy based on tourism, Victoria is the one city in Africa where the sight of beggers, the unruly youths, and the dispossesed, is the least likely to to be found.

But in addition to that sense of being away from it all, is added the sparkle of tropical life, with plam trees above one's head, grey-white sand at one's feet, and the beauty of beauties, the turquoise green-blue sparkle of the Indian Ocean.

Victoria, although catering to an international clientele of the western well-to-do, remains distinctly African, in its informality, simplicity, and sense of cheer.

3. Pretoria, South Africa. The Union Buildings in the country's capital city have the same neo-Greek architecture as the Capitol buildings in Washington DC; the foreground of the Union Buildings are beautiful, terraced gardens.

The buildings of the University of South Africa in Pretoria are reminiscent of those of the Pepperdine University in Malibu, California; brown, craggy walls, modern with no attempt at protraying classicism, Loa Angeles-like, and near the main entrance of the main building are handsome fountains that rise from and splash into a mini lake.

Church Square, which was the source of Pretoria, features rugged stone walls and sturdy, unpainted buildings. Dozens of statues depicting South Africa's long history adorn the city centre.

With architecture similar to that of the Union Buildings, the Transvaal Museum of Natural History is another of Pretoria's outstanding attractions. Melrose House is a period museum and specializes in period furniture.

Pretoria, like Cape Town, comes across as a city in which the madding crowd features less prominently than in most other African cities.

But Pretoria can feel even more intimidating than Cape Town in the sense of formality and structure. Nothing seems to jut in Pretoria.

As such, it does feel a little like European cities such as Vienna in Austria or Stockholm, Sweden --- highbrow, set in the midst of high art, more mental than emotional, with a certain Germanic orderliness.

Pretoria is one of Africa's star cities.

4. Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. This South African town prides itself as being the "Oxford of Africa", with a higher concentration of good schools that any other city in Africa.

It is particularly British in heritage, being at the heart of Zululand, yet also referred to as "the last outpost of the British empire."

Because of its Victorian heritage, much of the architecture in the city has a central European flavour, a certain Vienna-esque feel. The most striking example of this central European air is the City Hall in Pietermaritzburg, a pretty pink-brown building with multiple domes and a spire on which stands a clock.

The city is especially notable for its many parks, including the Botanic Gardens.

5. Port Louis, Mauritius.

6. Johannesburg, South Africa. In terms of basic industrialization and infrastructural complexity, Johannesburg is Africa's most advanced city, about five times the size of the Kenyan capital Nairobi (which itself is the largest city in East and Central Africa).

The skyline at the heart of Johannesburg city can sometimes, depending on from where it is glimpsed, seem to be a section of downtown New York City; Johannesburg has the largest concentration of skyscrapers of any city in Africa, with glass, steel, and concrete skyscrapers protruding into and marking out the skyline.

Viewed by night, a city filled with brilliant lights and the sparkle of medernity. Some people who have driven through the streets of Johannesburg say a number of the roads are better than many in western Europe.

Johannesburg, built upon the gold mines of the late 19th century as as close to being big, industrialized Europe as any city in Africa, for those for whom Europe is the yardstick of advancement.

This large city is the headquarters of many, if not most, of South Africa's huge industry. It is the location of the Johannesburg International Airport, the busiest international airport in Africa.

The Emmarentia Dam is a popular place for boating enthusiasts.

Other water-centred attractions are the Bruma Lake and the Randburg Waterfront, which are a similar concept to Cape Town's Waterfront. The Gold Reef City re-enacts the early city of Johannesburg.

The city bustles with life and all walks of it, from the globe-trotting business executive to the downtrodden homeless.

Not that Cape Town and Pretoria are without their less fortunate lot; but Johannesburg seems to have a wider range of social classes than either Pretoria or Cape Town.

Because of this, it feels a bustling place to be, much like New York City. It is full of life, night and day, fast-paced, gregarious, and crowded in an exciting sort of way, with the upper middle class and the seedy low life equally represented.

For this same reason, unfortunately, Johannesburg like New York has been the home of an unusually high crime rate, at one point in 1999, the highest of any city in the world. Midday, mainstreet car jacks and armed robbersies are not unsual in Johannesburg.

An unfortunate blot on an otherwise beautiful and sophisticated city which to many people epitomizes the South Africa that is the largest and most advanced economy by far in Africa.

7. Nairobi, Kenya. The city of Nairobi has itself alone to blame for not being a better African city than it is today. It had all the opportunities in the past, the infrastructure, and (rare for Africa) decades of uninterrupted stability.

But despite its self-inflicted decline, it is still one of Africa's largest and most interesting cities.

More public facilities, more shopping centres with a wider variety of goods, more entertainment points with greater degrees of fun, csn be found in Nairobi than in any other city in East Africa, as well as the Horn of Africa and Central Africa.

Or as one Ugandan marketing manager visiting the city in 2001 remarked on its position as a major regional city despite the dscline: "Kenya is still Kenya."

Nairobi is the host city of several United Nations agencies as well as other international organizations. It serves as the location of a number of international news agencies' regional bureaus, and has more high-rise buildings than any city of any country in East and Central Africa.

Of the three East African countriee --- Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania --- Kenya's economy accounts for 60 percent, Tanzania's is at 25 percent, while Uganda's is 15 percent in size.

Nairobi shows this difference in size. It is one of the fastest-growing mobile phone markets on the African continent, has several dozen hotels, restaurants, and coffee shops, large supermarkets, has one of the largest fleets of public buses and taxi vans, yet they never seem enough.

Nairobi also has one of the most internationally-minded populations of any city in Africa. It is not a surprise to encounter a South African who has no clue that Nigeria is in West Africa and not a neighbour of Botswana in the southwest of Africa.

A typical West African urban dweller might find it hard to differentiate Malawi from Lesotho.

The Nairobi crowd tends to be well-informed on average, because of the fact that the country is heavily dependent on foreign tourism for national revenue, and also that Kenya has been host to numerous refugee populations from neighbouring countries.

What stands out most about Nairobi is the people.

All Kenya's neighbours tend to be traditional in outlook --- Tanzania to the south with Roman Catholic and Muslim-dominated populations, Ethiopia to the north and Eritrea to the north-east, mainly Muslim and Orthodox Christian, Somalia to the northeast, Muslim, Uganda to the west, just silghtly Roman Catholic-dominated, but also Anglican Protestant, and Sudan to the northwest, Muslim.

The societies are male-dominated, with well-defined, subsidiary roles for women, and a certain demure public behaviour expected of them.

Kenya and Nairobi in particular, has a different culture, where it appears that both men and women behave in a masculine manner.

All across the streets on a weekday are hundreds of thousands of these good-looking Kenyans walking briskly, the conversations revolving around the corporate and the pursuit of money. Pregnant women will casually disembark from a slow moving bus even before its reaches the stop, while holding another baby in their arms.

Open, cooperative and warm in manner, yet unsentimental, very direct and aggresive at the same time, is the Nairobi character. Kenyans freely and laughingly describe themselves as "rough" and "fast".

The taxis play unbearably loud club re-mixes of hit disco music, as pasengers sit unperturbed in silence.

Despite Kenya's relative high economic standards, public buses remain congested, with as many people seated as stand in the bus corridor, with few showing discomfort on their faces.

Life for them, it seems, is not life if it is not one of hustle and rough-edged. They seem to expect and be comfortable with that.

The Nairobi people are easy to approach and interact with, but this drive and their "rough" collective personalities can leave people from more traditional and polite societies feeling emotianally exhausted after some time.

Many visitors from the countries that neighbour Kenya often find this trait disorienting and even unmannerly.

However, it is this upfront and direct demeanor, the Tom Boyish yet sophisticatedly feminine trait among the women and girls, that makes for the exciting and rigorous city that Nairobi is --- loud street corner evangelists, charming female radio Disc Jockeys, the sizzle of the nightclubs and recreational centres, and sense of something happening all the time.
http://www.africaalmanac.com/top20townscitys.html

Africa's Best Cities
1. Cape Town, South Africa. Regarded by many people as Africa's best city, when all is said and done, a first-world city in substance and image. The streets of Cape Town, posh, with well-manicured grass; trees,and flower gardens, look more like a park than busy boulevards.

In 2001, it was voted by viewers of the CNN programme Inside Africa as the Best City in Africa, and with generally good reason.

Cape Town conveys a feeling of wide space, of having fewer people per square kilometre than any major city in Africa, of being a location further from the madding crowd than any other in Africa, a city where entry is by invitation only, so to speak.

It almost bears an air of exclusivity, of being the preserve of the upper middle class, of conservative chic, and of being a city that seems almost entirely a residential suburb, a mall, a health club, and a library. It is hard to find any litter and garbage anywhere.

The architecture is outstanding and like much of what there is in South Africa, is based around late 19th century English forms. For example, the parliamentary buildings in Cape Town, seat of the country's national assembly, are white, with columns crowned with beautiful Corinthian capitals.

Other places of note in Cape Town include the Company's Garden. The city is host to the beautiful, fortress-like Castle of Good Hope, which commemorates the birth of western civilization on the African subcontinent in 1652. The Waterfront is a medley of piers, anchored boats and entertainment and shopping places such as the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront shops.

Cape Town has the full range of the amenities for the lifestyle of any of the major western cities --- Opera, symphony orchestra, exquisite international cuisine, from African, to Greek, Indian, Chinese, and Italian.

It is, to put it simply, an exceptional African city, where everything works seamlessly and where standards of living are among the highest in the world.

Apart from its outstanding beauty and modernity, Cape Town has also become, increasingly, the centre of the country's film production industry. Several films and commercial videos have been filmed in Cape Town.

Set at the foot of Table Mountain, this city is much cheaper in costs for the film and advertizing industries than Europe and the United States, and yet offers about the same quality of production, better scenery, hence its rising status as the place of choice in which to shoot advert video clips or film sets.

Cape Town feels like a cousin to California's Beverly Hills area, the city of Sydney in Australia, and Christchurch, New Zealand.

However, because Cape Town is largely the domain of the White South Africans --- with their characteristically European reserve and individuality (and for whom even a trip to the beach on a holiday entails the reading of that week's issue of the Economist magazine) --- it can sometimes feel like a lonely city to live in.

Like most western societies, the impression can dawn on the outsider (especially the Black African, accustomed to the social network of extended family and friends) that plants and animals are more attentively and affectionately attended to in Cape Town, than are people.

Nonetheless, Cape Town is a great place that most people generally agree is Africa's number one city.

2. Victoria, Seychelles. For two years, 1997 and 1998, the capital of the Indian Ocean island nation of the Seychelles was the host city of the Miss World beauty pageant finals, which would be an understatement in describing its other-worldly charm.

Since the year 2000, Victoria --- capital of the smallest country in Africa --- has also become a major getaway for dozens of the world's biggest entertainment stars.

Victoria brings forth images of small, cute, clean, neat, quiet, a place away from the cynicism of the cut-throat commercial world.

Yet, ironically, it could be, per capita, the most expensive city in Africa, the high cost being brought on by the stream of jet-setter celebrities who abode there every once in a while, which really is to say, all year round.

Like Cape Town in South Africa, Victoria presents the impression of the pleasant place to go and be away from the mundane, over-crowded world elsewhere.

Victoria recalls to mind the Tanzanian paradise island of Zanzibar, all coconut trees, blue sky, acres of white sand, shimmering heat, and an inducement of the feeling that 21st century fast-paced digital time and fuss has all been left behind.

Except that Victoria is not fully Zanzibar.

Perhaps because of the combination of tiny population and an economy based on tourism, Victoria is the one city in Africa where the sight of beggers, the unruly youths, and the dispossesed, is the least likely to to be found.

But in addition to that sense of being away from it all, is added the sparkle of tropical life, with plam trees above one's head, grey-white sand at one's feet, and the beauty of beauties, the turquoise green-blue sparkle of the Indian Ocean.

Victoria, although catering to an international clientele of the western well-to-do, remains distinctly African, in its informality, simplicity, and sense of cheer.

3. Pretoria, South Africa. The Union Buildings in the country's capital city have the same neo-Greek architecture as the Capitol buildings in Washington DC; the foreground of the Union Buildings are beautiful, terraced gardens.

The buildings of the University of South Africa in Pretoria are reminiscent of those of the Pepperdine University in Malibu, California; brown, craggy walls, modern with no attempt at protraying classicism, Loa Angeles-like, and near the main entrance of the main building are handsome fountains that rise from and splash into a mini lake.

Church Square, which was the source of Pretoria, features rugged stone walls and sturdy, unpainted buildings. Dozens of statues depicting South Africa's long history adorn the city centre.

With architecture similar to that of the Union Buildings, the Transvaal Museum of Natural History is another of Pretoria's outstanding attractions. Melrose House is a period museum and specializes in period furniture.

Pretoria, like Cape Town, comes across as a city in which the madding crowd features less prominently than in most other African cities.

But Pretoria can feel even more intimidating than Cape Town in the sense of formality and structure. Nothing seems to jut in Pretoria.

As such, it does feel a little like European cities such as Vienna in Austria or Stockholm, Sweden --- highbrow, set in the midst of high art, more mental than emotional, with a certain Germanic orderliness.

Pretoria is one of Africa's star cities.

4. Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. This South African town prides itself as being the "Oxford of Africa", with a higher concentration of good schools that any other city in Africa.

It is particularly British in heritage, being at the heart of Zululand, yet also referred to as "the last outpost of the British empire."

Because of its Victorian heritage, much of the architecture in the city has a central European flavour, a certain Vienna-esque feel. The most striking example of this central European air is the City Hall in Pietermaritzburg, a pretty pink-brown building with multiple domes and a spire on which stands a clock.

The city is especially notable for its many parks, including the Botanic Gardens.

5. Port Louis, Mauritius.

6. Johannesburg, South Africa. In terms of basic industrialization and infrastructural complexity, Johannesburg is Africa's most advanced city, about five times the size of the Kenyan capital Nairobi (which itself is the largest city in East and Central Africa).

The skyline at the heart of Johannesburg city can sometimes, depending on from where it is glimpsed, seem to be a section of downtown New York City; Johannesburg has the largest concentration of skyscrapers of any city in Africa, with glass, steel, and concrete skyscrapers protruding into and marking out the skyline.

Viewed by night, a city filled with brilliant lights and the sparkle of medernity. Some people who have driven through the streets of Johannesburg say a number of the roads are better than many in western Europe.

Johannesburg, built upon the gold mines of the late 19th century as as close to being big, industrialized Europe as any city in Africa, for those for whom Europe is the yardstick of advancement.

This large city is the headquarters of many, if not most, of South Africa's huge industry. It is the location of the Johannesburg International Airport, the busiest international airport in Africa.

The Emmarentia Dam is a popular place for boating enthusiasts.

Other water-centred attractions are the Bruma Lake and the Randburg Waterfront, which are a similar concept to Cape Town's Waterfront. The Gold Reef City re-enacts the early city of Johannesburg.

The city bustles with life and all walks of it, from the globe-trotting business executive to the downtrodden homeless.

Not that Cape Town and Pretoria are without their less fortunate lot; but Johannesburg seems to have a wider range of social classes than either Pretoria or Cape Town.

Because of this, it feels a bustling place to be, much like New York City. It is full of life, night and day, fast-paced, gregarious, and crowded in an exciting sort of way, with the upper middle class and the seedy low life equally represented.

For this same reason, unfortunately, Johannesburg like New York has been the home of an unusually high crime rate, at one point in 1999, the highest of any city in the world. Midday, mainstreet car jacks and armed robbersies are not unsual in Johannesburg.

An unfortunate blot on an otherwise beautiful and sophisticated city which to many people epitomizes the South Africa that is the largest and most advanced economy by far in Africa.

7. Nairobi, Kenya. The city of Nairobi has itself alone to blame for not being a better African city than it is today. It had all the opportunities in the past, the infrastructure, and (rare for Africa) decades of uninterrupted stability.

But despite its self-inflicted decline, it is still one of Africa's largest and most interesting cities.

More public facilities, more shopping centres with a wider variety of goods, more entertainment points with greater degrees of fun, csn be found in Nairobi than in any other city in East Africa, as well as the Horn of Africa and Central Africa.

Or as one Ugandan marketing manager visiting the city in 2001 remarked on its position as a major regional city despite the dscline: "Kenya is still Kenya."

Nairobi is the host city of several United Nations agencies as well as other international organizations. It serves as the location of a number of international news agencies' regional bureaus, and has more high-rise buildings than any city of any country in East and Central Africa.

Of the three East African countriee --- Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania --- Kenya's economy accounts for 60 percent, Tanzania's is at 25 percent, while Uganda's is 15 percent in size.

Nairobi shows this difference in size. It is one of the fastest-growing mobile phone markets on the African continent, has several dozen hotels, restaurants, and coffee shops, large supermarkets, has one of the largest fleets of public buses and taxi vans, yet they never seem enough.

Nairobi also has one of the most internationally-minded populations of any city in Africa. It is not a surprise to encounter a South African who has no clue that Nigeria is in West Africa and not a neighbour of Botswana in the southwest of Africa.

A typical West African urban dweller might find it hard to differentiate Malawi from Lesotho.

The Nairobi crowd tends to be well-informed on average, because of the fact that the country is heavily dependent on foreign tourism for national revenue, and also that Kenya has been host to numerous refugee populations from neighbouring countries.

What stands out most about Nairobi is the people.

All Kenya's neighbours tend to be traditional in outlook --- Tanzania to the south with Roman Catholic and Muslim-dominated populations, Ethiopia to the north and Eritrea to the north-east, mainly Muslim and Orthodox Christian, Somalia to the northeast, Muslim, Uganda to the west, just silghtly Roman Catholic-dominated, but also Anglican Protestant, and Sudan to the northwest, Muslim.

The societies are male-dominated, with well-defined, subsidiary roles for women, and a certain demure public behaviour expected of them.

Kenya and Nairobi in particular, has a different culture, where it appears that both men and women behave in a masculine manner.

All across the streets on a weekday are hundreds of thousands of these good-looking Kenyans walking briskly, the conversations revolving around the corporate and the pursuit of money. Pregnant women will casually disembark from a slow moving bus even before its reaches the stop, while holding another baby in their arms.

Open, cooperative and warm in manner, yet unsentimental, very direct and aggresive at the same time, is the Nairobi character. Kenyans freely and laughingly describe themselves as "rough" and "fast".

The taxis play unbearably loud club re-mixes of hit disco music, as pasengers sit unperturbed in silence.

Despite Kenya's relative high economic standards, public buses remain congested, with as many people seated as stand in the bus corridor, with few showing discomfort on their faces.

Life for them, it seems, is not life if it is not one of hustle and rough-edged. They seem to expect and be comfortable with that.

The Nairobi people are easy to approach and interact with, but this drive and their "rough" collective personalities can leave people from more traditional and polite societies feeling emotianally exhausted after some time.

Many visitors from the countries that neighbour Kenya often find this trait disorienting and even unmannerly.

However, it is this upfront and direct demeanor, the Tom Boyish yet sophisticatedly feminine trait among the women and girls, that makes for the exciting and rigorous city that Nairobi is --- loud street corner evangelists, charming female radio Disc Jockeys, the sizzle of the nightclubs and recreational centres, and sense of something happening all the time.
http://www.africaalmanac.com/top20townscitys.html

Cape Town Voted “Best World City” in Telegraph Travel Awards
Mark Benson on December 17, 2008

Located on the shores of Table Bay, Cape Town is one of the world’s top tourist destinations and has now been voted the ‘Best World City’ in the 2008 Telegraph Travel Awards…

Stunning Cape Town in South Africa fended off competition from major tourist cities like San Francisco and Sydney to claim the top spot in the recent awards.

The awards, which polled 40,000 people, also saw South Africa claim a place in the top three of the ‘Best non-European Country’ category.

A whopping 92 per cent of respondents said that the credit crunch will have no effect on holiday destination choices. The top destinations on earth were voted as New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Canada, whilst top cities were Cape Town, San Francisco, Sydney and Vancouver.

Situated on the southwestern tip of Africa, Cape Town is recognised as one of the most beautiful places on earth. Offering a range of attractions, breathtaking sights and endless activities, it is a year-round holiday destination with friendly people, a mild climate and rich cultural heritage.

Known as the ‘Mother City,’ Cape Town is the oldest city in South Africa and has a cultural heritage spanning more than 300 years.

It also has the top five national tourist attractions in South Africa, including Table Mountain; the V&A Waterfront, a unique shopping and holiday experience on a scenic working harbour; Robben Island, the former home of Nelson Mandela; the Cape Town Wine Routes, where some of the world´s best wines are produced and Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, internationally acclaimed as one of the great botanical gardens of the world.

Cape Town Tourism CEO Mariëtte du-Toit Helmbold said, “We are thrilled with the news.

“Cape Town is well-placed to receive visitors looking for value for money and an authentic experience.

“Cape Town has so much more to offer that visitors generally end up coming back to see and do more,” she added.

South African Tourism UK Country Manager Lebohang Mokhesi said, “Value for money and the strength of the pound compared with other world currencies appear to have been a deciding factor for readers when voting for Cape Town.

“Cape Town is one of the world’s most beautiful cities and to receive such an accolade from consumers themselves is great recognition of the wonderful tourism offering it has developed.

“Word-of-mouth advertising was a key component to spreading the good word about South Africa in the UK.

“It is near impossible for anyone to visit and not share their experiences with friends and family on their return. During this period of economic downturn, value for money is at the forefront of traveller’s minds.

“South Africa has always offered value for money and, with the current exchange rate as it stands, visitors’ money goes even further,” she added.

Cape Town was also recently voted one of ten cities in the world that are most likely to become a global sustainability centre by 2020.

But, remember it’s not all about the destination; it’s about the journey too. The awards found people’s favourite airlines to be the long-haul specialists Singapore Airlines, Virgin, Emirates and Qatar Airways.

http://www.nubricks.com/archives/1493/cape-town-voted-best-world-city-in-telegraph-travel-awards/

paddy_lo:
best city in AFRICA, big deal,i say i prefer ABUJA,why live in a city where the only rich people in town are white people,
Abujas riches are home grown and the only thing capetown has over it is the beaches,but ABUJA is developing its lakefront and will have waterfront hotels and resorts soon,
my point is i aint impressed by capetown,i have been to miami and lasvegas two american cities with their own uniqueness,unlike all american cities that look the same,but u dont see me screaming about them,give me a million dollars and i choose abuja over anycity in the world

Your opinion I guess, clearly we have a difference in taste.

Cape Town, South Africa

· 3rd Best City In The World - US Travel And Leisure July 2008
· Best City In Africa & Middle East - US Travel And Leisure July 2008
· 4th Top City In The World – Conde Nast Readers’ Choice October 2008
· Best City In Africa & Middle East – Conde Nast Readers’ Choice October 2008
· 3rd Best City In The Top 10 World Food Cities - Lonely Planet Blue List 2008
· Best Destination, Africa - World Travel Awards May 2008
· Best City To Live In, Africa & Middle East - Mercer Quality Of Living Survey 2008
· One Of The “Places Of A Lifetime” – National Geographic Traveler, July 2008
· One Of The World’s Most Sustainable Cities - Ethisphere Institute, Sept 2008
· Boulder’s Beach: World’s Best Family Beach - UK Telegraph March 2007
· Cleanest City In SA - DEAT Annual Cleanest Metro Awards March 2007
· #1 Uk Long Haul Destination - UK Trends And Spends Survey 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007
· One Of The World’s 5 Bluest Sky Destinations - Expedia.co.uk July 2006
· Favourite Foreign City - UK Telegraph 2004, 2005
· Ideal Travel Destination - Markinor-Sunday Times Top Brands Survey 2005
· Africa’s Leading Destination - World Travel Awards 2008
· Best Tourism Investor City of the Year - AI Tourism Investor Awards 2009


Dude I could go on forever, because it is by far the best city in africa. But I suggest you start a thread on about Abuja so that we can appreciate it separately.

RSA:
I think Yoruba is happy to be an African,I called him proudly Africa man.Maybe you should try it
this is just an observation.

Gordons Bay

Drive through Gordons Bay

Drive through Gordons Bay

RSA:
The author is a Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson.

Hmmm, read that article and I must say Jeremy speaks alot of sense. I walk around all day in Joburg since 2007 and I have never been robbed, killed and so are my friends.

yoruba, you re one of the numerous nigerians brandishing other countries as if its your birth right, but are quick to beat down yours.

We living in a global village, I think there is more to this world than just Nigeria that we can explore.

so also is naija.if  you can't sayanything about naija.as least change your name!

Dude this a Naija forum, there is so much about naija that you can read about, If this was a South African forum(which I doubt they exists) I wouldve been talking about Naija related issues just like this one but only about Yoruba. I opened this thread for educational purposes(learning about other places outside Naija) because I noticed in this forum, there is so much people dont know about other places.

RSA:
I think Yoruba is happy to be an African,I called him proudly Africa man.Maybe you should try it
this is just an observation.

@RSA Thanks for helping me out.lol

i can't help but ask, am sure south africans are not as excited as you re about cape town

You find that South Africans and tourist from all over the world are very excited about this place as much as cities like Rio de Jinero(mind the spelling), Monaco, Paris. For example even SAns often go to Cape Town for a holiday, isnt that enough excitement.

if only you and every average nigerian can be this excited about naija am sure things would improve.
this is just an observation.

I chose Cape Town because its one of the best cities in the world, such beauty is worth appreciating as much you'd appreciate art, music and woman. I just love traveling, if you had been to a city like Santiago wouldnt you show your excitement?

"Great things are done when men and mountains meet" - William Blake, a Capetonian at heart

4.South Africa accounts for almost 25% of the GDP of the entire African continent, with an economy more than twice the size of the second biggest – Algeria (World Bank)

The other interesting stat is that South Africa consumes just 4% of total land area in Africa.

Decryptor:
Breaking news! It's no longer South Africa but GHANA. Their exchange rate is now $1=1.4GhanaCedi if you doubt me check
www.exchange-rates.org/history/GHC/USD/T

Idiot, size of an economy is not measured on currency and exchange rate but on Gross Domestic Product.

Besides Ghanaian government had to cut some digits in their currency a while ago. The South African Rand is the 10th most traded currency in the world and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange is the largest stock exchange in Africa.

What makes South Africa Unique?

Infrastructure:

The world's biggest hospital is the Chris Hani - Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto.
South Africa is one of only 12 countries where tap water is safe to drink. Its tap water is rated the third best worldwide.
South Africa is the world's biggest producer and exporter of mohair.
South Africa mines deeper than any other country in the world, up to depths of 2.5 miles at the Western Deep Levels Mine.
It has the largest hydro-electric tunnel system in the world at the Orange Fish Rivers Tunnel.
Electricity costs are the second lowest in the world.
South Africa is the world's biggest producer of gold, platinum, chromium, vanadium, manganese and alumino-silicates. It also produces nearly 40% of the world's chrome and vermiculite.
The world's two largest platinum mines are located near Rustenburg.
The Johannesburg Stock Exchange is ranked as the 10th largest in the world.
South Africa has the world's second oldest air force, established 1920.
Currently, South Africa is the only country in the world which has voluntarily dismantled its nuclear arsenal.
The Gateway Center is the largest shopping mall in the Southern Hemisphere.
Durban is the largest port in Africa and the Southern Hemisphere and the ninth largest in the world.
While occupying 4% of Africa's landmass, South Africa boasts more than 50% of the cars, phones, automatic bank tellers and industrial facilities on the continent.
The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT), now rising from a Karoo koppie in Sutherland will be the largest telescope in the southern hemisphere (and largest in the world), when completed in 2005.
South Africa is a middle income country with a strong emerging economy – the 25th largest in the world - and produces more goods than Portugal, Russia or Singapore. It also has Africa’s biggest economy.
The rand, the world's most actively traded emerging market currency
South Africa has the fourth largest coal reserves in the world. Its coal industry ranks sixth in the world in terms of output of hard coal and third in terms of seaborne international coal trade.

Companies:

The Rand Refinery is the largest refinery of gold in the world.
The South African oil company SASOL has established the only commercially proven oil from coal operations in the world.
The world's biggest producer of non-fuel minerals is South African company Anglo American Corporation.
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.
Eskom, the national electricity utility, is the world's fourth largest in terms of both sales volume and normal capacity.
The De Beers Group of companies control more than 80% of the world supply of rough diamonds.
South African Breweries ranks as the second largest brewing company in the world. It supplies up to 50% of China's beer.
Samancor Limited is the world's largest producer by sales of manganese and chrome products.
KSDP Pentagraph is rated as the world's second best design company by British design magazine, 'Creative Review'. The company is responsible for the new-look packaging of 'Fanta' and design modifications of 'Coca-Cola' soft drinks worldwide.

Entertainment:

South Africa has the second oldest Film Industry in the world.
The Cape Argus Cycle Tour is the largest timed cycle race in the world.
The Comrades marathon has the largest field of any ultra marathon in the world.
Local Big Macs are now officially the cheapest, about 30% cheaper than anywhere else in the world.
Cape Grace Hotel (120 rooms) was voted World's Best Hotel, by readers of Conde Naste Traveller magazine (this hotel attained the highest score ever in the history of the awards).
M-Net is Africa's largest pay television service, delivering 24-hour programming to dozens of countries across the continent.

Travel & Nature:

The Kruger National Park nature reserve supports the greatest variety of wildlife species on the African continent. It is roughly the size of Wales, or the state of Massachusetts (USA), which makes it the eighth largest reserve in the world
The Lost City Resort is the largest thermal resort in the world as well as the largest building project undertaken in the southern hemisphere.
Home to one of the world's 6 floral kingdoms, South Africa has one-tenth (23 200) of the world's flowering plants, of which nearly 19 000 are endemic, making it the richest region in the world in terms of species to area - 1.7 times richer even than Brazil.
It is home to more kinds of mammals than North and South America combined; or Europe and Asia together.
Table Mountain in Cape Town is one of the seven wonders of the geological world. Standing at just over 1000 metres, it dominates the city's skyline. Table Mountain can be seen as far as 200 kilometres out to sea.
Paarl is South Africa's third oldest town and home to KWV Cellars- the largest wine cellar in the world (covering 22 hectares).
Kimberley's 'Big Hole' is the largest hand-dug hole in the world and is deeper than Table Mountain is high. Kimberley also has the only drive-in pubs in the world.
Mpumalanga province is home to the Blyderiver Canyon, the third largest canyon in the world.
The Tugela Falls in KwaZulu Natal, at 948m (3110ft), is the second highest waterfall in the world.
The world's best land-based whale-watching spot is located in Hermanus, Western Cape.

Johannesburg has more trees than any other major city in the world

That the Sardine shoal that comes up the KZN south coast every year is one of the worlds natural wonders and larger in size than anything else in the world.

Seal Island in False Bay is the only place in the world where Great Whites consistently breach (leap completely out of the water) to catch their prey, mainly seals. It also boasts the highest frequency of Great White shark attacks in the world.

In 1991, South Africa became the first country in the world to protect the Great White shark.

According to 'Trivial Pursuit', Graaf-Reinett in the Western Cape has the world's biggest grapevine.

The Boesmansgat is renowned as the second deepest sinkhole (about 299 metres) and the largest of its kind in the world. Many attempts have been made at world records in cave-diving in this exceptional sinkhole.

Close to Oudtshoorn are the Cango Caves, a 3 km long sequence of caverns of glittering stalagmites and stalactites, which makes it the longest underground cave sequence in the world.

Fossilized footprints were found at Langebaan Lagoon, Western Cape, in a sand-dune-turned-rock. The 117,000 year-old fossils are the oldest known footprints of an anatomically modern human.

The Sterkfontein Caves, in Gauteng, is the site where the oldest human skeletal remains were found in the world (3,5 million years old). This is the place where the human race was born!

The 2,02 billion year-old crater in Vredefort is the oldest known crater on Earth. The general estimate of its original diamater is roughly 300 km, which makes it the largest crater on the planet, as well.

Usutu forest in the largest man made forest in the world.

The St. Lucia estuarine system, in Kwazulu Natal, is the largest estuarine system in Africa.


Military History:
The Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) was the first war of the 20th century and saw the introduction of trench warfare, sadly - the first large-scale use of concentration camps for non-combatants, and the most prolonged period of guerilla warfare by a "conquered" nation's military against a "victorious" army.

Camouflage was first used in battle by the Boers, who effectively used camouflaged trenches and adapted battledress to blend into treeless landscapes. It was during this war that British forces were forced to switch from colourful uniforms to more sobre 'khaki'.

The world's first news footage and propoganda films were shot during the Anglo-Boer War.

Technologically, it saw the first use of a generation of weapons that are still with us today - automatic handguns, magazine-fed rifles, and machine guns.

The Guiness Book of Records lists the Anglo-Boer War as Britain's most costly war outside of the two World Wars.




Innovative Inventions:
The 'Hippo Water Roller' is a classic example of design with SA conditions in mind. The roller is intended for use by communities without access to tap water. It enables people to pull a 90litre drum of water - instead of carrying it by hand - with a minimum of effort.


The 'Kreepy Krawly', the world's first automatic pool cleaning unit, was invented by two engineers from Randburg.

The world's first successful heart transplant was performed in South Africa at Groote Shuur.

The 'Freeplay' wind-up radio was designed by Syzygy, a Cape Town company. Power for the radio is generated by a winding handle. The institute says the radio is not only useful in SA, but also in the entire southern African region, where access to electricity and the high cost of battery power are major stumbling blocks to radio access.

The CT Scanner was invented by Allan Macleod Cormack, from Cape Town, for which he won a Nobel Physics Prize in 1979.



Ken Hall has been given an accolade by Time magazine for his plastic mini-oven which he invented to reduce the risk of fires in squatter camps. He said he designed his oven, called the 'Cobb', after realising how people and children in squatter camps were burned because of exploding paraffin stoves. The "oven" uses six charcoal brickets which provide heat for more than two hours.




Short Articles

U.S. State Department View:
South Africa has a sophisticated financial structure with a large and active stock exchange that ranks 11th in the world in terms of total market capitalization. The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) performs all central banking functions. The SARB is independent and now operates in much the same way as Western central banks, influencing interest rates and controlling liquidity through its interest rates on funds provided to private sector banks. Quantitative credit controls and administrative control of deposit and lending rates have largely disappeared.



Healthy & Natural, Vol. 7, Issue 5:
Scientific studies from South Africa and Japan corroborate findings of potent antioxidants in an indigenous herb tea from the Southwestern Cape region of South Africa. Called rooibos (roy-boss), this red tea is the only other tea in the world which undergoes a fermentation process like black tea. Fermentation turns the leaves of rooibos from green to a deep red color and gives it a slightly sweet note with a deep body. Studies show that rooibos contains comparable amounts of polyphenols to green tea and shows anti-mutagenic, anti-carcinogenic, anti-inflammatory and anti-viral activity. Rooibos, unlike black and green tea is completely caffeine-free.



EcoTourist:
Whale watching in South Africa has become part of the South African experience for tourists. The Cape Whale Route stretches from Doringbaai on the West Coast to the Tsitsikamma National Park on the East Coast and incorporates many varied whale-viewing points. The best land-based whale-watching spot is located in Hermanus. About thirty-seven species of whales and dolphins typically visit South Africa. The southern right whale is seen the most frequently.

(And hopefully one day it will say South Africa has the tallest building in the world.)

What makes South Africa Unique?

Infrastructure:

The world's biggest hospital is the Chris Hani - Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto.
South Africa is one of only 12 countries where tap water is safe to drink. Its tap water is rated the third best worldwide.
South Africa is the world's biggest producer and exporter of mohair.
South Africa mines deeper than any other country in the world, up to depths of 2.5 miles at the Western Deep Levels Mine.
It has the largest hydro-electric tunnel system in the world at the Orange Fish Rivers Tunnel.
Electricity costs are the second lowest in the world.
South Africa is the world's biggest producer of gold, platinum, chromium, vanadium, manganese and alumino-silicates. It also produces nearly 40% of the world's chrome and vermiculite.
The world's two largest platinum mines are located near Rustenburg.
The Johannesburg Stock Exchange is ranked as the 10th largest in the world.
South Africa has the world's second oldest air force, established 1920.
Currently, South Africa is the only country in the world which has voluntarily dismantled its nuclear arsenal.
The Gateway Center is the largest shopping mall in the Southern Hemisphere.
Durban is the largest port in Africa and the Southern Hemisphere and the ninth largest in the world.
While occupying 4% of Africa's landmass, South Africa boasts more than 50% of the cars, phones, automatic bank tellers and industrial facilities on the continent.
The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT), now rising from a Karoo koppie in Sutherland will be the largest telescope in the southern hemisphere (and largest in the world), when completed in 2005.
South Africa is a middle income country with a strong emerging economy – the 25th largest in the world - and produces more goods than Portugal, Russia or Singapore. It also has Africa’s biggest economy.
The rand, the world's most actively traded emerging market currency
South Africa has the fourth largest coal reserves in the world. Its coal industry ranks sixth in the world in terms of output of hard coal and third in terms of seaborne international coal trade.

Companies:

The Rand Refinery is the largest refinery of gold in the world.
The South African oil company SASOL has established the only commercially proven oil from coal operations in the world.
The world's biggest producer of non-fuel minerals is South African company Anglo American Corporation.
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.
Eskom, the national electricity utility, is the world's fourth largest in terms of both sales volume and normal capacity.
The De Beers Group of companies control more than 80% of the world supply of rough diamonds.
South African Breweries ranks as the second largest brewing company in the world. It supplies up to 50% of China's beer.
Samancor Limited is the world's largest producer by sales of manganese and chrome products.
KSDP Pentagraph is rated as the world's second best design company by British design magazine, 'Creative Review'. The company is responsible for the new-look packaging of 'Fanta' and design modifications of 'Coca-Cola' soft drinks worldwide.

Entertainment:

South Africa has the second oldest Film Industry in the world.
The Cape Argus Cycle Tour is the largest timed cycle race in the world.
The Comrades marathon has the largest field of any ultra marathon in the world.
Local Big Macs are now officially the cheapest, about 30% cheaper than anywhere else in the world.
Cape Grace Hotel (120 rooms) was voted World's Best Hotel, by readers of Conde Naste Traveller magazine (this hotel attained the highest score ever in the history of the awards).
M-Net is Africa's largest pay television service, delivering 24-hour programming to dozens of countries across the continent.

Travel & Nature:

The Kruger National Park nature reserve supports the greatest variety of wildlife species on the African continent. It is roughly the size of Wales, or the state of Massachusetts (USA), which makes it the eighth largest reserve in the world
The Lost City Resort is the largest thermal resort in the world as well as the largest building project undertaken in the southern hemisphere.
Home to one of the world's 6 floral kingdoms, South Africa has one-tenth (23 200) of the world's flowering plants, of which nearly 19 000 are endemic, making it the richest region in the world in terms of species to area - 1.7 times richer even than Brazil.
It is home to more kinds of mammals than North and South America combined; or Europe and Asia together.
Table Mountain in Cape Town is one of the seven wonders of the geological world. Standing at just over 1000 metres, it dominates the city's skyline. Table Mountain can be seen as far as 200 kilometres out to sea.
Paarl is South Africa's third oldest town and home to KWV Cellars- the largest wine cellar in the world (covering 22 hectares).
Kimberley's 'Big Hole' is the largest hand-dug hole in the world and is deeper than Table Mountain is high. Kimberley also has the only drive-in pubs in the world.
Mpumalanga province is home to the Blyderiver Canyon, the third largest canyon in the world.
The Tugela Falls in KwaZulu Natal, at 948m (3110ft), is the second highest waterfall in the world.
The world's best land-based whale-watching spot is located in Hermanus, Western Cape.

Johannesburg has more trees than any other major city in the world

That the Sardine shoal that comes up the KZN south coast every year is one of the worlds natural wonders and larger in size than anything else in the world.

Seal Island in False Bay is the only place in the world where Great Whites consistently breach (leap completely out of the water) to catch their prey, mainly seals. It also boasts the highest frequency of Great White shark attacks in the world.

In 1991, South Africa became the first country in the world to protect the Great White shark.

According to 'Trivial Pursuit', Graaf-Reinett in the Western Cape has the world's biggest grapevine.

The Boesmansgat is renowned as the second deepest sinkhole (about 299 metres) and the largest of its kind in the world. Many attempts have been made at world records in cave-diving in this exceptional sinkhole.

Close to Oudtshoorn are the Cango Caves, a 3 km long sequence of caverns of glittering stalagmites and stalactites, which makes it the longest underground cave sequence in the world.

Fossilized footprints were found at Langebaan Lagoon, Western Cape, in a sand-dune-turned-rock. The 117,000 year-old fossils are the oldest known footprints of an anatomically modern human.

The Sterkfontein Caves, in Gauteng, is the site where the oldest human skeletal remains were found in the world (3,5 million years old). This is the place where the human race was born!

The 2,02 billion year-old crater in Vredefort is the oldest known crater on Earth. The general estimate of its original diamater is roughly 300 km, which makes it the largest crater on the planet, as well.

Usutu forest in the largest man made forest in the world.

The St. Lucia estuarine system, in Kwazulu Natal, is the largest estuarine system in Africa.


Military History:
The Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) was the first war of the 20th century and saw the introduction of trench warfare, sadly - the first large-scale use of concentration camps for non-combatants, and the most prolonged period of guerilla warfare by a "conquered" nation's military against a "victorious" army.

Camouflage was first used in battle by the Boers, who effectively used camouflaged trenches and adapted battledress to blend into treeless landscapes. It was during this war that British forces were forced to switch from colourful uniforms to more sobre 'khaki'.

The world's first news footage and propoganda films were shot during the Anglo-Boer War.

Technologically, it saw the first use of a generation of weapons that are still with us today - automatic handguns, magazine-fed rifles, and machine guns.

The Guiness Book of Records lists the Anglo-Boer War as Britain's most costly war outside of the two World Wars.




Innovative Inventions:
The 'Hippo Water Roller' is a classic example of design with SA conditions in mind. The roller is intended for use by communities without access to tap water. It enables people to pull a 90litre drum of water - instead of carrying it by hand - with a minimum of effort.


The 'Kreepy Krawly', the world's first automatic pool cleaning unit, was invented by two engineers from Randburg.

The world's first successful heart transplant was performed in South Africa at Groote Shuur.

The 'Freeplay' wind-up radio was designed by Syzygy, a Cape Town company. Power for the radio is generated by a winding handle. The institute says the radio is not only useful in SA, but also in the entire southern African region, where access to electricity and the high cost of battery power are major stumbling blocks to radio access.

The CT Scanner was invented by Allan Macleod Cormack, from Cape Town, for which he won a Nobel Physics Prize in 1979.



Ken Hall has been given an accolade by Time magazine for his plastic mini-oven which he invented to reduce the risk of fires in squatter camps. He said he designed his oven, called the 'Cobb', after realising how people and children in squatter camps were burned because of exploding paraffin stoves. The "oven" uses six charcoal brickets which provide heat for more than two hours.




Short Articles

U.S. State Department View:
South Africa has a sophisticated financial structure with a large and active stock exchange that ranks 11th in the world in terms of total market capitalization. The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) performs all central banking functions. The SARB is independent and now operates in much the same way as Western central banks, influencing interest rates and controlling liquidity through its interest rates on funds provided to private sector banks. Quantitative credit controls and administrative control of deposit and lending rates have largely disappeared.



Healthy & Natural, Vol. 7, Issue 5:
Scientific studies from South Africa and Japan corroborate findings of potent antioxidants in an indigenous herb tea from the Southwestern Cape region of South Africa. Called rooibos (roy-boss), this red tea is the only other tea in the world which undergoes a fermentation process like black tea. Fermentation turns the leaves of rooibos from green to a deep red color and gives it a slightly sweet note with a deep body. Studies show that rooibos contains comparable amounts of polyphenols to green tea and shows anti-mutagenic, anti-carcinogenic, anti-inflammatory and anti-viral activity. Rooibos, unlike black and green tea is completely caffeine-free.



EcoTourist:
Whale watching in South Africa has become part of the South African experience for tourists. The Cape Whale Route stretches from Doringbaai on the West Coast to the Tsitsikamma National Park on the East Coast and incorporates many varied whale-viewing points. The best land-based whale-watching spot is located in Hermanus. About thirty-seven species of whales and dolphins typically visit South Africa. The southern right whale is seen the most frequently.

(And hopefully one day it will say South Africa has the tallest building in the world.)

morpheus24:
JESUS!

THIS BOY IS STILL ALIVE!!!!

I thought them September riots in SA had claimed you seeing that a colored is not recognized as a Saffer nowadays

CHEI!!!!

What are you talking about?

tunnytox:
That's no news, there's racism everywhere even Nigerians don't like each other and if you think Australians are xenophobic what about Russia, Ukraine and even South Africa and Ghana, some ppl even said in Thailand they eat black ppl yet Nigerians still go there, i think one devil is better than the other, Australia is far better than most countries even in Europe.

I hear you, but have you ever heard of what they did to the Aborigines, I think its the worst genocide in human history(even worse than what Hitler did to the Jews) but they act as if they have a perfect clean history. Dont get it twisted on the outside Australia seems like a good place with good people but its just a country full of rednecks. I would rather go to New Zealand.

Infrastructure:

The world's biggest hospital is the Chris Hani - Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto.
South Africa is one of only 12 countries where tap water is safe to drink. Its tap water is rated the third best worldwide.
South Africa is the world's biggest producer and exporter of mohair.
South Africa mines deeper than any other country in the world, up to depths of 2.5 miles at the Western Deep Levels Mine.
It has the largest hydro-electric tunnel system in the world at the Orange Fish Rivers Tunnel.
Electricity costs are the second lowest in the world.
South Africa is the world's biggest producer of gold, platinum, chromium, vanadium, manganese and alumino-silicates. It also produces nearly 40% of the world's chrome and vermiculite.
The world's two largest platinum mines are located near Rustenburg.
The Johannesburg Stock Exchange is ranked as the 10th largest in the world.
South Africa has the world's second oldest air force, established 1920.
Currently, South Africa is the only country in the world which has voluntarily dismantled its nuclear arsenal.
The Gateway Center is the largest shopping mall in the Southern Hemisphere.
Durban is the largest port in Africa and the Southern Hemisphere and the ninth largest in the world.
While occupying 4% of Africa's landmass, South Africa boasts more than 50% of the cars, phones, automatic bank tellers and industrial facilities on the continent.
The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT), now rising from a Karoo koppie in Sutherland will be the largest telescope in the southern hemisphere (and largest in the world), when completed in 2005.
South Africa is a middle income country with a strong emerging economy – the 25th largest in the world - and produces more goods than Portugal, Russia or Singapore. It also has Africa’s biggest economy.
The rand, the world's most actively traded emerging market currency
South Africa has the fourth largest coal reserves in the world. Its coal industry ranks sixth in the world in terms of output of hard coal and third in terms of seaborne international coal trade.

Companies:

The Rand Refinery is the largest refinery of gold in the world.
The South African oil company SASOL has established the only commercially proven oil from coal operations in the world.
The world's biggest producer of non-fuel minerals is South African company Anglo American Corporation.
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.
Eskom, the national electricity utility, is the world's fourth largest in terms of both sales volume and normal capacity.
The De Beers Group of companies control more than 80% of the world supply of rough diamonds.
South African Breweries ranks as the second largest brewing company in the world. It supplies up to 50% of China's beer.
Samancor Limited is the world's largest producer by sales of manganese and chrome products.
KSDP Pentagraph is rated as the world's second best design company by British design magazine, 'Creative Review'. The company is responsible for the new-look packaging of 'Fanta' and design modifications of 'Coca-Cola' soft drinks worldwide.

Entertainment:

South Africa has the second oldest Film Industry in the world.
The Cape Argus Cycle Tour is the largest timed cycle race in the world.
The Comrades marathon has the largest field of any ultra marathon in the world.
Local Big Macs are now officially the cheapest, about 30% cheaper than anywhere else in the world.
Cape Grace Hotel (120 rooms) was voted World's Best Hotel, by readers of Conde Naste Traveller magazine (this hotel attained the highest score ever in the history of the awards).
M-Net is Africa's largest pay television service, delivering 24-hour programming to dozens of countries across the continent.

Travel & Nature:

The Kruger National Park nature reserve supports the greatest variety of wildlife species on the African continent. It is roughly the size of Wales, or the state of Massachusetts (USA), which makes it the eighth largest reserve in the world
The Lost City Resort is the largest thermal resort in the world as well as the largest building project undertaken in the southern hemisphere.
Home to one of the world's 6 floral kingdoms, South Africa has one-tenth (23 200) of the world's flowering plants, of which nearly 19 000 are endemic, making it the richest region in the world in terms of species to area - 1.7 times richer even than Brazil.
It is home to more kinds of mammals than North and South America combined; or Europe and Asia together.
Table Mountain in Cape Town is one of the seven wonders of the geological world. Standing at just over 1000 metres, it dominates the city's skyline. Table Mountain can be seen as far as 200 kilometres out to sea.
Paarl is South Africa's third oldest town and home to KWV Cellars- the largest wine cellar in the world (covering 22 hectares).
Kimberley's 'Big Hole' is the largest hand-dug hole in the world and is deeper than Table Mountain is high. Kimberley also has the only drive-in pubs in the world.
Mpumalanga province is home to the Blyderiver Canyon, the third largest canyon in the world.
The Tugela Falls in KwaZulu Natal, at 948m (3110ft), is the second highest waterfall in the world.
The world's best land-based whale-watching spot is located in Hermanus, Western Cape.

Johannesburg has more trees than any other major city in the world

That the Sardine shoal that comes up the KZN south coast every year is one of the worlds natural wonders and larger in size than anything else in the world.

Seal Island in False Bay is the only place in the world where Great Whites consistently breach (leap completely out of the water) to catch their prey, mainly seals. It also boasts the highest frequency of Great White shark attacks in the world.

In 1991, South Africa became the first country in the world to protect the Great White shark.

According to 'Trivial Pursuit', Graaf-Reinett in the Western Cape has the world's biggest grapevine.

The Boesmansgat is renowned as the second deepest sinkhole (about 299 metres) and the largest of its kind in the world. Many attempts have been made at world records in cave-diving in this exceptional sinkhole.

Close to Oudtshoorn are the Cango Caves, a 3 km long sequence of caverns of glittering stalagmites and stalactites, which makes it the longest underground cave sequence in the world.

Fossilized footprints were found at Langebaan Lagoon, Western Cape, in a sand-dune-turned-rock. The 117,000 year-old fossils are the oldest known footprints of an anatomically modern human.

The Sterkfontein Caves, in Gauteng, is the site where the oldest human skeletal remains were found in the world (3,5 million years old). This is the place where the human race was born!

The 2,02 billion year-old crater in Vredefort is the oldest known crater on Earth. The general estimate of its original diamater is roughly 300 km, which makes it the largest crater on the planet, as well.

Usutu forest in the largest man made forest in the world.

The St. Lucia estuarine system, in Kwazulu Natal, is the largest estuarine system in Africa.


Military History:
The Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) was the first war of the 20th century and saw the introduction of trench warfare, sadly - the first large-scale use of concentration camps for non-combatants, and the most prolonged period of guerilla warfare by a "conquered" nation's military against a "victorious" army.

Camouflage was first used in battle by the Boers, who effectively used camouflaged trenches and adapted battledress to blend into treeless landscapes. It was during this war that British forces were forced to switch from colourful uniforms to more sobre 'khaki'.

The world's first news footage and propoganda films were shot during the Anglo-Boer War.

Technologically, it saw the first use of a generation of weapons that are still with us today - automatic handguns, magazine-fed rifles, and machine guns.

The Guiness Book of Records lists the Anglo-Boer War as Britain's most costly war outside of the two World Wars.




Innovative Inventions:
The 'Hippo Water Roller' is a classic example of design with SA conditions in mind. The roller is intended for use by communities without access to tap water. It enables people to pull a 90litre drum of water - instead of carrying it by hand - with a minimum of effort.


The 'Kreepy Krawly', the world's first automatic pool cleaning unit, was invented by two engineers from Randburg.

The world's first successful heart transplant was performed in South Africa at Groote Shuur.

The 'Freeplay' wind-up radio was designed by Syzygy, a Cape Town company. Power for the radio is generated by a winding handle. The institute says the radio is not only useful in SA, but also in the entire southern African region, where access to electricity and the high cost of battery power are major stumbling blocks to radio access.

The CT Scanner was invented by Allan Macleod Cormack, from Cape Town, for which he won a Nobel Physics Prize in 1979.



Ken Hall has been given an accolade by Time magazine for his plastic mini-oven which he invented to reduce the risk of fires in squatter camps. He said he designed his oven, called the 'Cobb', after realising how people and children in squatter camps were burned because of exploding paraffin stoves. The "oven" uses six charcoal brickets which provide heat for more than two hours.




Short Articles

U.S. State Department View:
South Africa has a sophisticated financial structure with a large and active stock exchange that ranks 11th in the world in terms of total market capitalization. The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) performs all central banking functions. The SARB is independent and now operates in much the same way as Western central banks, influencing interest rates and controlling liquidity through its interest rates on funds provided to private sector banks. Quantitative credit controls and administrative control of deposit and lending rates have largely disappeared.



Healthy & Natural, Vol. 7, Issue 5:
Scientific studies from South Africa and Japan corroborate findings of potent antioxidants in an indigenous herb tea from the Southwestern Cape region of South Africa. Called rooibos (roy-boss), this red tea is the only other tea in the world which undergoes a fermentation process like black tea. Fermentation turns the leaves of rooibos from green to a deep red color and gives it a slightly sweet note with a deep body. Studies show that rooibos contains comparable amounts of polyphenols to green tea and shows anti-mutagenic, anti-carcinogenic, anti-inflammatory and anti-viral activity. Rooibos, unlike black and green tea is completely caffeine-free.



EcoTourist:
Whale watching in South Africa has become part of the South African experience for tourists. The Cape Whale Route stretches from Doringbaai on the West Coast to the Tsitsikamma National Park on the East Coast and incorporates many varied whale-viewing points. The best land-based whale-watching spot is located in Hermanus. About thirty-seven species of whales and dolphins typically visit South Africa. The southern right whale is seen the most frequently.

(And hopefully one day it will say South Africa has the tallest building in the world.)

I guess you guys are also forgot that everyday Australians are racist and xenophobic(i.e. protest in Australia Day last year) and that they almost wiped an entire race of Aborigines.

The island Australia was originally an island were the British army sent prisoners into that country and used it to hold prisoners. That country is full of rednecks which is evident in there genes.

I think nobody can disagree about Cape Town being the best city in Africa. A naturally beautiful and an ultra modern City.
Truly one of a kind.

Cape flowers:

Another beautiful night:

Night views

Infrastructure:

The world's biggest hospital is the Chris Hani - Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto.
South Africa is one of only 12 countries where tap water is safe to drink. Its tap water is rated the third best worldwide.
South Africa is the world's biggest producer and exporter of mohair.
South Africa mines deeper than any other country in the world, up to depths of 2.5 miles at the Western Deep Levels Mine.
It has the largest hydro-electric tunnel system in the world at the Orange Fish Rivers Tunnel.
Electricity costs are the second lowest in the world.
South Africa is the world's biggest producer of gold, platinum, chromium, vanadium, manganese and alumino-silicates. It also produces nearly 40% of the world's chrome and vermiculite.
The world's two largest platinum mines are located near Rustenburg.
The Johannesburg Stock Exchange is ranked as the 10th largest in the world.
South Africa has the world's second oldest air force, established 1920.
Currently, South Africa is the only country in the world which has voluntarily dismantled its nuclear arsenal.
The Gateway Center is the largest shopping mall in the Southern Hemisphere.
Durban is the largest port in Africa and the Southern Hemisphere and the ninth largest in the world.
While occupying 4% of Africa's landmass, South Africa boasts more than 50% of the cars, phones, automatic bank tellers and industrial facilities on the continent.
The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT), now rising from a Karoo koppie in Sutherland will be the largest telescope in the southern hemisphere (and largest in the world), when completed in 2005.
South Africa is a middle income country with a strong emerging economy – the 25th largest in the world - and produces more goods than Portugal, Russia or Singapore. It also has Africa’s biggest economy.
The rand, the world's most actively traded emerging market currency
South Africa has the fourth largest coal reserves in the world. Its coal industry ranks sixth in the world in terms of output of hard coal and third in terms of seaborne international coal trade.

Companies:

The Rand Refinery is the largest refinery of gold in the world.
The South African oil company SASOL has established the only commercially proven oil from coal operations in the world.
The world's biggest producer of non-fuel minerals is South African company Anglo American Corporation.
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.
Eskom, the national electricity utility, is the world's fourth largest in terms of both sales volume and normal capacity.
The De Beers Group of companies control more than 80% of the world supply of rough diamonds.
South African Breweries ranks as the second largest brewing company in the world. It supplies up to 50% of China's beer.
Samancor Limited is the world's largest producer by sales of manganese and chrome products.
KSDP Pentagraph is rated as the world's second best design company by British design magazine, 'Creative Review'. The company is responsible for the new-look packaging of 'Fanta' and design modifications of 'Coca-Cola' soft drinks worldwide.

Entertainment:

South Africa has the second oldest Film Industry in the world.
The Cape Argus Cycle Tour is the largest timed cycle race in the world.
The Comrades marathon has the largest field of any ultra marathon in the world.
Local Big Macs are now officially the cheapest, about 30% cheaper than anywhere else in the world.
Cape Grace Hotel (120 rooms) was voted World's Best Hotel, by readers of Conde Naste Traveller magazine (this hotel attained the highest score ever in the history of the awards).
M-Net is Africa's largest pay television service, delivering 24-hour programming to dozens of countries across the continent.

Travel & Nature:

The Kruger National Park nature reserve supports the greatest variety of wildlife species on the African continent. It is roughly the size of Wales, or the state of Massachusetts (USA), which makes it the eighth largest reserve in the world
The Lost City Resort is the largest thermal resort in the world as well as the largest building project undertaken in the southern hemisphere.
Home to one of the world's 6 floral kingdoms, South Africa has one-tenth (23 200) of the world's flowering plants, of which nearly 19 000 are endemic, making it the richest region in the world in terms of species to area - 1.7 times richer even than Brazil.
It is home to more kinds of mammals than North and South America combined; or Europe and Asia together.
Table Mountain in Cape Town is one of the seven wonders of the geological world. Standing at just over 1000 metres, it dominates the city's skyline. Table Mountain can be seen as far as 200 kilometres out to sea.
Paarl is South Africa's third oldest town and home to KWV Cellars- the largest wine cellar in the world (covering 22 hectares).
Kimberley's 'Big Hole' is the largest hand-dug hole in the world and is deeper than Table Mountain is high. Kimberley also has the only drive-in pubs in the world.
Mpumalanga province is home to the Blyderiver Canyon, the third largest canyon in the world.
The Tugela Falls in KwaZulu Natal, at 948m (3110ft), is the second highest waterfall in the world.
The world's best land-based whale-watching spot is located in Hermanus, Western Cape.

Johannesburg has more trees than any other major city in the world

That the Sardine shoal that comes up the KZN south coast every year is one of the worlds natural wonders and larger in size than anything else in the world.

Seal Island in False Bay is the only place in the world where Great Whites consistently breach (leap completely out of the water) to catch their prey, mainly seals. It also boasts the highest frequency of Great White shark attacks in the world.

In 1991, South Africa became the first country in the world to protect the Great White shark.

According to 'Trivial Pursuit', Graaf-Reinett in the Western Cape has the world's biggest grapevine.

The Boesmansgat is renowned as the second deepest sinkhole (about 299 metres) and the largest of its kind in the world. Many attempts have been made at world records in cave-diving in this exceptional sinkhole.

Close to Oudtshoorn are the Cango Caves, a 3 km long sequence of caverns of glittering stalagmites and stalactites, which makes it the longest underground cave sequence in the world.

Fossilized footprints were found at Langebaan Lagoon, Western Cape, in a sand-dune-turned-rock. The 117,000 year-old fossils are the oldest known footprints of an anatomically modern human.

The Sterkfontein Caves, in Gauteng, is the site where the oldest human skeletal remains were found in the world (3,5 million years old). This is the place where the human race was born!

The 2,02 billion year-old crater in Vredefort is the oldest known crater on Earth. The general estimate of its original diamater is roughly 300 km, which makes it the largest crater on the planet, as well.

Usutu forest in the largest man made forest in the world.

The St. Lucia estuarine system, in Kwazulu Natal, is the largest estuarine system in Africa.


Military History:
The Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) was the first war of the 20th century and saw the introduction of trench warfare, sadly - the first large-scale use of concentration camps for non-combatants, and the most prolonged period of guerilla warfare by a "conquered" nation's military against a "victorious" army.

Camouflage was first used in battle by the Boers, who effectively used camouflaged trenches and adapted battledress to blend into treeless landscapes. It was during this war that British forces were forced to switch from colourful uniforms to more sobre 'khaki'.

The world's first news footage and propoganda films were shot during the Anglo-Boer War.

Technologically, it saw the first use of a generation of weapons that are still with us today - automatic handguns, magazine-fed rifles, and machine guns.

The Guiness Book of Records lists the Anglo-Boer War as Britain's most costly war outside of the two World Wars.




Innovative Inventions:
The 'Hippo Water Roller' is a classic example of design with SA conditions in mind. The roller is intended for use by communities without access to tap water. It enables people to pull a 90litre drum of water - instead of carrying it by hand - with a minimum of effort.


The 'Kreepy Krawly', the world's first automatic pool cleaning unit, was invented by two engineers from Randburg.

The world's first successful heart transplant was performed in South Africa at Groote Shuur.

The 'Freeplay' wind-up radio was designed by Syzygy, a Cape Town company. Power for the radio is generated by a winding handle. The institute says the radio is not only useful in SA, but also in the entire southern African region, where access to electricity and the high cost of battery power are major stumbling blocks to radio access.

The CT Scanner was invented by Allan Macleod Cormack, from Cape Town, for which he won a Nobel Physics Prize in 1979.



Ken Hall has been given an accolade by Time magazine for his plastic mini-oven which he invented to reduce the risk of fires in squatter camps. He said he designed his oven, called the 'Cobb', after realising how people and children in squatter camps were burned because of exploding paraffin stoves. The "oven" uses six charcoal brickets which provide heat for more than two hours.




Short Articles

U.S. State Department View:
South Africa has a sophisticated financial structure with a large and active stock exchange that ranks 11th in the world in terms of total market capitalization. The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) performs all central banking functions. The SARB is independent and now operates in much the same way as Western central banks, influencing interest rates and controlling liquidity through its interest rates on funds provided to private sector banks. Quantitative credit controls and administrative control of deposit and lending rates have largely disappeared.



Healthy & Natural, Vol. 7, Issue 5:
Scientific studies from South Africa and Japan corroborate findings of potent antioxidants in an indigenous herb tea from the Southwestern Cape region of South Africa. Called rooibos (roy-boss), this red tea is the only other tea in the world which undergoes a fermentation process like black tea. Fermentation turns the leaves of rooibos from green to a deep red color and gives it a slightly sweet note with a deep body. Studies show that rooibos contains comparable amounts of polyphenols to green tea and shows anti-mutagenic, anti-carcinogenic, anti-inflammatory and anti-viral activity. Rooibos, unlike black and green tea is completely caffeine-free.



EcoTourist:
Whale watching in South Africa has become part of the South African experience for tourists. The Cape Whale Route stretches from Doringbaai on the West Coast to the Tsitsikamma National Park on the East Coast and incorporates many varied whale-viewing points. The best land-based whale-watching spot is located in Hermanus. About thirty-seven species of whales and dolphins typically visit South Africa. The southern right whale is seen the most frequently.

(And hopefully one day it will say South Africa has the tallest building in the world.)

Infrastructure:

The world's biggest hospital is the Chris Hani - Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto.
South Africa is one of only 12 countries where tap water is safe to drink. Its tap water is rated the third best worldwide.
South Africa is the world's biggest producer and exporter of mohair.
South Africa mines deeper than any other country in the world, up to depths of 2.5 miles at the Western Deep Levels Mine.
It has the largest hydro-electric tunnel system in the world at the Orange Fish Rivers Tunnel.
Electricity costs are the second lowest in the world.
South Africa is the world's biggest producer of gold, platinum, chromium, vanadium, manganese and alumino-silicates. It also produces nearly 40% of the world's chrome and vermiculite.
The world's two largest platinum mines are located near Rustenburg.
The Johannesburg Stock Exchange is ranked as the 10th largest in the world.
South Africa has the world's second oldest air force, established 1920.
Currently, South Africa is the only country in the world which has voluntarily dismantled its nuclear arsenal.
The Gateway Center is the largest shopping mall in the Southern Hemisphere.
Durban is the largest port in Africa and the Southern Hemisphere and the ninth largest in the world.
While occupying 4% of Africa's landmass, South Africa boasts more than 50% of the cars, phones, automatic bank tellers and industrial facilities on the continent.
The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT), now rising from a Karoo koppie in Sutherland will be the largest telescope in the southern hemisphere (and largest in the world), when completed in 2005.
South Africa is a middle income country with a strong emerging economy – the 25th largest in the world - and produces more goods than Portugal, Russia or Singapore. It also has Africa’s biggest economy.
The rand, the world's most actively traded emerging market currency
South Africa has the fourth largest coal reserves in the world. Its coal industry ranks sixth in the world in terms of output of hard coal and third in terms of seaborne international coal trade.

Companies:

The Rand Refinery is the largest refinery of gold in the world.
The South African oil company SASOL has established the only commercially proven oil from coal operations in the world.
The world's biggest producer of non-fuel minerals is South African company Anglo American Corporation.
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.
Eskom, the national electricity utility, is the world's fourth largest in terms of both sales volume and normal capacity.
The De Beers Group of companies control more than 80% of the world supply of rough diamonds.
South African Breweries ranks as the second largest brewing company in the world. It supplies up to 50% of China's beer.
Samancor Limited is the world's largest producer by sales of manganese and chrome products.
KSDP Pentagraph is rated as the world's second best design company by British design magazine, 'Creative Review'. The company is responsible for the new-look packaging of 'Fanta' and design modifications of 'Coca-Cola' soft drinks worldwide.

Entertainment:

South Africa has the second oldest Film Industry in the world.
The Cape Argus Cycle Tour is the largest timed cycle race in the world.
The Comrades marathon has the largest field of any ultra marathon in the world.
Local Big Macs are now officially the cheapest, about 30% cheaper than anywhere else in the world.
Cape Grace Hotel (120 rooms) was voted World's Best Hotel, by readers of Conde Naste Traveller magazine (this hotel attained the highest score ever in the history of the awards).
M-Net is Africa's largest pay television service, delivering 24-hour programming to dozens of countries across the continent.

Travel & Nature:

The Kruger National Park nature reserve supports the greatest variety of wildlife species on the African continent. It is roughly the size of Wales, or the state of Massachusetts (USA), which makes it the eighth largest reserve in the world
The Lost City Resort is the largest thermal resort in the world as well as the largest building project undertaken in the southern hemisphere.
Home to one of the world's 6 floral kingdoms, South Africa has one-tenth (23 200) of the world's flowering plants, of which nearly 19 000 are endemic, making it the richest region in the world in terms of species to area - 1.7 times richer even than Brazil.
It is home to more kinds of mammals than North and South America combined; or Europe and Asia together.
Table Mountain in Cape Town is one of the seven wonders of the geological world. Standing at just over 1000 metres, it dominates the city's skyline. Table Mountain can be seen as far as 200 kilometres out to sea.
Paarl is South Africa's third oldest town and home to KWV Cellars- the largest wine cellar in the world (covering 22 hectares).
Kimberley's 'Big Hole' is the largest hand-dug hole in the world and is deeper than Table Mountain is high. Kimberley also has the only drive-in pubs in the world.
Mpumalanga province is home to the Blyderiver Canyon, the third largest canyon in the world.
The Tugela Falls in KwaZulu Natal, at 948m (3110ft), is the second highest waterfall in the world.
The world's best land-based whale-watching spot is located in Hermanus, Western Cape.

Johannesburg has more trees than any other major city in the world

That the Sardine shoal that comes up the KZN south coast every year is one of the worlds natural wonders and larger in size than anything else in the world.

Seal Island in False Bay is the only place in the world where Great Whites consistently breach (leap completely out of the water) to catch their prey, mainly seals. It also boasts the highest frequency of Great White shark attacks in the world.

In 1991, South Africa became the first country in the world to protect the Great White shark.

According to 'Trivial Pursuit', Graaf-Reinett in the Western Cape has the world's biggest grapevine.

The Boesmansgat is renowned as the second deepest sinkhole (about 299 metres) and the largest of its kind in the world. Many attempts have been made at world records in cave-diving in this exceptional sinkhole.

Close to Oudtshoorn are the Cango Caves, a 3 km long sequence of caverns of glittering stalagmites and stalactites, which makes it the longest underground cave sequence in the world.

Fossilized footprints were found at Langebaan Lagoon, Western Cape, in a sand-dune-turned-rock. The 117,000 year-old fossils are the oldest known footprints of an anatomically modern human.

The Sterkfontein Caves, in Gauteng, is the site where the oldest human skeletal remains were found in the world (3,5 million years old). This is the place where the human race was born!

The 2,02 billion year-old crater in Vredefort is the oldest known crater on Earth. The general estimate of its original diamater is roughly 300 km, which makes it the largest crater on the planet, as well.

Usutu forest in the largest man made forest in the world.

The St. Lucia estuarine system, in Kwazulu Natal, is the largest estuarine system in Africa.


Military History:
The Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) was the first war of the 20th century and saw the introduction of trench warfare, sadly - the first large-scale use of concentration camps for non-combatants, and the most prolonged period of guerilla warfare by a "conquered" nation's military against a "victorious" army.

Camouflage was first used in battle by the Boers, who effectively used camouflaged trenches and adapted battledress to blend into treeless landscapes. It was during this war that British forces were forced to switch from colourful uniforms to more sobre 'khaki'.

The world's first news footage and propoganda films were shot during the Anglo-Boer War.

Technologically, it saw the first use of a generation of weapons that are still with us today - automatic handguns, magazine-fed rifles, and machine guns.

The Guiness Book of Records lists the Anglo-Boer War as Britain's most costly war outside of the two World Wars.




Innovative Inventions:
The 'Hippo Water Roller' is a classic example of design with SA conditions in mind. The roller is intended for use by communities without access to tap water. It enables people to pull a 90litre drum of water - instead of carrying it by hand - with a minimum of effort.


The 'Kreepy Krawly', the world's first automatic pool cleaning unit, was invented by two engineers from Randburg.

The world's first successful heart transplant was performed in South Africa at Groote Shuur.

The 'Freeplay' wind-up radio was designed by Syzygy, a Cape Town company. Power for the radio is generated by a winding handle. The institute says the radio is not only useful in SA, but also in the entire southern African region, where access to electricity and the high cost of battery power are major stumbling blocks to radio access.

The CT Scanner was invented by Allan Macleod Cormack, from Cape Town, for which he won a Nobel Physics Prize in 1979.



Ken Hall has been given an accolade by Time magazine for his plastic mini-oven which he invented to reduce the risk of fires in squatter camps. He said he designed his oven, called the 'Cobb', after realising how people and children in squatter camps were burned because of exploding paraffin stoves. The "oven" uses six charcoal brickets which provide heat for more than two hours.




Short Articles

U.S. State Department View:
South Africa has a sophisticated financial structure with a large and active stock exchange that ranks 11th in the world in terms of total market capitalization. The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) performs all central banking functions. The SARB is independent and now operates in much the same way as Western central banks, influencing interest rates and controlling liquidity through its interest rates on funds provided to private sector banks. Quantitative credit controls and administrative control of deposit and lending rates have largely disappeared.



Healthy & Natural, Vol. 7, Issue 5:
Scientific studies from South Africa and Japan corroborate findings of potent antioxidants in an indigenous herb tea from the Southwestern Cape region of South Africa. Called rooibos (roy-boss), this red tea is the only other tea in the world which undergoes a fermentation process like black tea. Fermentation turns the leaves of rooibos from green to a deep red color and gives it a slightly sweet note with a deep body. Studies show that rooibos contains comparable amounts of polyphenols to green tea and shows anti-mutagenic, anti-carcinogenic, anti-inflammatory and anti-viral activity. Rooibos, unlike black and green tea is completely caffeine-free.



EcoTourist:
Whale watching in South Africa has become part of the South African experience for tourists. The Cape Whale Route stretches from Doringbaai on the West Coast to the Tsitsikamma National Park on the East Coast and incorporates many varied whale-viewing points. The best land-based whale-watching spot is located in Hermanus. About thirty-seven species of whales and dolphins typically visit South Africa. The southern right whale is seen the most frequently.

(And hopefully one day it will say South Africa has the tallest building in the world.)

A Chinese state-owned oil company is in talks with Nigeria to acquire stakes in some of the world's richest oil blocks, in potentially one of Beijing's biggest overseas oil deals, a daily said on Tuesday.

China's largest listed offshore oil and gas producer CNOOC is seeking to buy six billion barrels of oil, the equivalent to one in every six barrels of the proven reserves in Nigeria, the Financial Times said.

The bids could pitch China into competition with Western oil groups including Shell, Chevron, Total and ExxonMobil which partially or wholly control and operate the 23 blocks under discussion.

Sixteen licences are up for renewal, according to the FT.

Details of the talks are contained in a letter from the office of Nigeria's President Umaru Yar'Adua to Sunrise, CNOOC's representative, a copy of which was obtained by the paper.

The overall value of the Chinese offer is not disclosed, although some details suggest a figure of about $30-billion.

"Negotiations are ongoing not only with Sunrise/CNOOC but also with all other stakeholders in the industry," a spokesperson for
Yar'Adua said.

"The federal government has not taken any final position on the issue."

A spokesperson for CNOOC in Beijing declined comment on the report.

The letter, dated August 13, said an initial offer was
"unacceptable" but added: "Your interest in all the listed blocks will be considered if your revised offer is favourable."

China's government-backed oil companies are seizing on the economic crisis to make landmark overseas acquisitions, in a bid to feed the country's growing economy. - AFP

http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-09-29-china-seeks-major-stake-in-nigerian-oil

tosh_acer:
@Yoruba

Go and ask the white South Africans and they will tell you there is a difference between south africa and Africa as a whole - do not be deceived.

Its fair to say its true what you saying. White South Africans prefer to group themselves with Australians and New Zealanders, Indian SAns with Indians, but whatever SA is as African as the rest of Africa full stop.

proproman:
@Yoruba, so what is your point? Nigerians should start fleeing to SA in droves? Everyone is entitled to their opinion. If you think SA is heaven next door, so be it. If enjoyment thinks its hell at the back yard, it's his opinion and I think kyou should respect it, not insult him for it.

Ive never said that Nigerians should go to SA in the first place. My problem is these insults thrown at different countries which shows the ignorance within this forum. SA has problems and so does Nigeria.

We should promote Africa to Africa relations and stop judging it with ignorance.