---
title: "Australia vs South Africa — area, population, currency"
description: "Australia is 7,741,220 km² with 27,614,411 people; South Africa is 1,219,090 km² with 64,747,319. Area, density, currency, languages and time zones side by side."
url: https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/australia-vs-south-africa/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Australia vs South Africa

**Australia vs South Africa: Australia is larger; South Africa has more people**

7,741,220 km² vs 1,219,090 km² · 27,614,411 vs 64,747,319

Australia is 6.3 times larger than South Africa — 7,741,220 against 1,219,090 km². South Africa is 2.3 times more populous than Australia — 64,747,319 against 27,614,411 people.

## Side by side

|  | Australia | South Africa |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Capital | Canberra | Pretoria (administrative); Cape Town (legislative); Bloemfontein (judicial) |
| Area | 7,741,220 km² | 1,219,090 km² |
| Population | 27,614,411 (2025) | 64,747,319 (2025) |
| Density | 3.6 /km² | 53.1 /km² |
| Currency | Australian dollar (AUD) | South African rand (ZAR) |
| Official languages | English | Afrikaans, English, Southern Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Southern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu |
| Time zones | UTC+08:00, UTC+08:45, UTC+09:30, UTC+10:00, UTC+10:30 | UTC+02:00 |
| Calling code | +61 | +27 |
| Drives on the | left | left |
| Continent | Oceania | Africa |
| ISO codes | AU / AUS | ZA / ZAF |

## Population density

South Africa is 15 times more densely populated than Australia — 53 against 4 people per km². Density is where area and population interact, and it often reverses the impression the headline figures give — a large country with a small population can feel emptier than a small crowded one by an enormous margin.

## Practical differences

- Different currencies: the Australian dollar and the South African rand.
- Australia spans 5 time zones, so "local time" there is not a single answer.
- Different continents — Oceania and Africa.

## Australia

The sixth-largest country in the world and the only one that covers an entire continent. The Great Barrier Reef runs about 2,300 km and is the largest structure made by living organisms on Earth, visible from orbit. Around eighty percent of its mammals, reptiles and flowering plants exist nowhere else. Melbourne and Sydney are within roughly a hundred thousand people of each other, and which counts as the largest city depends on where the boundary is drawn.

## South Africa

One of only a handful of countries with more than one capital, and the only one with three. The Vredefort Dome south-west of Johannesburg is the largest verified impact crater on Earth, about 300 km across and 2 billion years old. The Cape Floral Region packs roughly 9,000 plant species into a small corner of the country, most of them found nowhere else.

> Neutral facts only. Nothing here addresses politics, government, economics or which country is preferable in any respect — population is the one figure that dates, and it carries its year.

## Common questions

### Is Australia bigger than South Africa?

Australia is larger — 7,741,220 km² against 1,219,090 km².

### Which has more people, Australia or South Africa?

South Africa, with 64,747,319 against 27,614,411.

### What is the time difference between Australia and South Africa?

Australia is UTC+08:00, UTC+08:45, UTC+09:30, UTC+10:00, UTC+10:30 and South Africa is UTC+02:00. Daylight saving shifts the gap during the year in places that observe it.

## Related pages

- [Australia](https://atoneplace.net/country/australia/)
- [South Africa](https://atoneplace.net/country/south-africa/)
- [India vs South Africa](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/india-vs-south-africa/)
- [China vs South Africa](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/china-vs-south-africa/)
- [Japan vs South Africa](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/japan-vs-south-africa/)
- [Canada vs South Africa](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/canada-vs-south-africa/)
- [Australia vs United States](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/australia-vs-united-states/)
- [Australia vs India](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/australia-vs-india/)
- [Australia vs China](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/australia-vs-china/)
- [Australia vs United Kingdom](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/australia-vs-united-kingdom/)
- [Australia vs Japan](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/australia-vs-japan/)
- [Australia vs Canada](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/australia-vs-canada/)
- [Australia vs New Zealand](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/australia-vs-new-zealand/)
- [Australia vs France](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/australia-vs-france/)

## Sources

- The World Factbook — Central Intelligence Agency (https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/) [Public domain (US Government)]
- World Bank Open Data — The World Bank (https://data.worldbank.org/) [CC BY 4.0]