---
title: "Japan vs South Africa — area, population, currency"
description: "Japan is 377,915 km² with 123,366,734 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/japan-vs-south-africa/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Japan vs South Africa

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

377,915 km² vs 1,219,090 km² · 123,366,734 vs 64,747,319

South Africa is 3.2 times larger than Japan — 1,219,090 against 377,915 km². Japan is 1.9 times more populous than South Africa — 123,366,734 against 64,747,319 people.

## Side by side

|  | Japan | South Africa |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Capital | Tokyo | Pretoria (administrative); Cape Town (legislative); Bloemfontein (judicial) |
| Area | 377,915 km² | 1,219,090 km² |
| Population | 123,366,734 (2025) | 64,747,319 (2025) |
| Density | 326.4 /km² | 53.1 /km² |
| Currency | Japanese yen (JPY) | South African rand (ZAR) |
| Official languages | Japanese | Afrikaans, English, Southern Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Southern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu |
| Time zones | UTC+09:00 | UTC+02:00 |
| Calling code | +81 | +27 |
| Drives on the | left | left |
| Continent | Asia | Africa |
| ISO codes | JP / JPN | ZA / ZAF |

## Population density

Japan is 6.1 times more densely populated than South Africa — 326 against 53 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 Japanese yen and the South African rand.
- Different continents — Asia and Africa.

## Japan

A 2023 government survey using digital mapping counted 14,125 islands, more than double the long-quoted figure of 6,852. About three-quarters of the land is mountain, so nearly everyone lives on a narrow band of coastal plain. Japan sits where four tectonic plates meet and records a fifth of the world's magnitude-6-and-above earthquakes.

## 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 Japan bigger than South Africa?

South Africa is larger — 1,219,090 km² against 377,915 km².

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

Japan, with 123,366,734 against 64,747,319.

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

Japan is UTC+09:00 and South Africa is UTC+02:00. Daylight saving shifts the gap during the year in places that observe it.

## Related pages

- [Japan](https://atoneplace.net/country/japan/)
- [South Africa](https://atoneplace.net/country/south-africa/)
- [India vs Japan](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/india-vs-japan/)
- [India vs South Africa](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/india-vs-south-africa/)
- [China vs Japan](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/china-vs-japan/)
- [China vs South Africa](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/china-vs-south-africa/)
- [Japan vs United States](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/japan-vs-united-states/)
- [Japan vs United Kingdom](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/japan-vs-united-kingdom/)
- [Japan vs New Zealand](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/japan-vs-new-zealand/)
- [Japan vs Russia](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/japan-vs-russia/)
- [Japan vs Mexico](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/japan-vs-mexico/)
- [Japan vs Spain](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/japan-vs-spain/)
- [Japan vs South Korea](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/japan-vs-south-korea/)
- [Japan vs Netherlands](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/japan-vs-netherlands/)

## 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]