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Blog: 23 January 2017 (Population density per municipality)
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In today's blog we take a look at the population density per municipality in South Africa, and show that municipalities in Gauteng are seriously overcrowded compared to the rest of South Africa, putting severe strain on all it's available infrastructure and resources.
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Population density per municipality
The map below shows the population estimate per municipality based on Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) Community Survey Data of 2016. Both the size and the colour of the bubble indicate the relative size of each municipalities' population to the country total
As can be seen from the map the large metro areas such as City of Cape Town, Nelson Mandela Bay, Buffalo City, eThekweni, City of Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and City of Tshwane all have relatively large bubbles and dark red and orange colours.
Its clear Gauteng which is smallest in terms of square meters has by far the highest population, pushing its population density way above a province such as the Northern Cape for example. Where there is vast expanses of land with very few people living on it. See our Population Density Map page for more details
Another interesting observation is how many municipal areas are clustered around the borders of South Africa. From the municipalities all spread out along South Africa's coast line, to the municipalities around Swaziland, to those close to the border of Mozambique and Zimbabwe. The table below shows the Community Survey 2016 estimate of the population per province.
Province |
Population |
% of total population |
Western Cape |
6,279,731 |
11.3 |
Eastern Cape |
6,996,976 |
12.6 |
Northern Cape |
1,193,780 |
2.1 |
Free State |
2,834,714 |
5.1 |
KwaZulu-Natal |
11,065,240 |
19.9 |
North West |
3,748,435 |
6.7 |
Gauteng |
13,399,725 |
24.1 |
Mpumalanga |
4,335,964 |
7.1 |
Limpopo |
5,799,090 |
10.4 |
The problem for South Africa right now is that it's population growth is outstripping economic growth, and basically what this means the economic pie that South Africa's share is not growing at the same pace as the number of people that need to share it, and this reduces the economic welfare per capita/ per person in South Africa.