🇿🇦 New country: fly over South Africa!
Get your hiking boots ready — Toponauts is heading to the southern tip of Africa: South Africa! 🇿🇦✈️ It's a huge country with three very different landscapes: sunny beaches, wide golden grassland, and even snow-capped mountains. Fly over its 9 provinces, big rivers, and famous landmarks like Table Mountain.
🗺️ 9 provinces to explore
South Africa is divided into 9 provinces: Gauteng, Western Cape, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Free State, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, North West and Northern Cape. Fly into each one and watch its real border light up on the map — from busy Gauteng (the smallest province, but the most crowded) to the huge, dry Northern Cape.
🏛️ Not one, not two, but THREE capital cities!
Here's a fun surprise: South Africa doesn't have just one capital city — it has three! Pretoria is where the government works, Cape Town (Kaapstad) is where parliament meets and makes the laws, and Bloemfontein is where the country's top judges decide on court cases. No other country in the world splits its capital like this!
🌊 Rivers across the land
The Orange River is South Africa's longest river — it starts high up in the mountains of Lesotho and flows all the way west to the Atlantic Ocean. Its biggest helper is the Vaal River, which supplies water to millions of people around Johannesburg. Up north, the Limpopo river forms a natural border with Botswana and Zimbabwe.
⛰️ From Table Mountain to the Drakensberg
Right behind Cape Town rises the flat-topped Table Mountain, one of the most recognisable mountains on Earth — sometimes it even gets covered by a cloud that looks like a tablecloth! Further east, the jagged Drakensberg ("Dragon Mountains") rise up to 3,450 metres at their highest point, Mafadi, right on the border with Lesotho.
🎉 Fun facts
- South Africa completely surrounds another country: tiny Lesotho sits entirely inside its borders, like a hole in a donut!
- The country has 11 official languages — more than almost any other country in the world.
- South Africa is home to the Cape Floral Region, a small area with more plant species than the whole of the UK.
- Big cities to discover include Johannesburg, Durban, Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth) and Kimberley — once famous for its giant diamond mine.
▶️ How to play
Switch your country to South Africa with the "change your country" button, then pick a map — provinces, capitals, big cities, rivers or landscapes. Zoom into a single province to practise its towns. Happy flying! 🚁