Provinces of South Africa

South Africa is currently divided into nine provinces. On the eve of the 1994 general election, South Africa's former homelands, also known as Bantustans, were reintegrated and the four existing provinces were divided into nine. In December 2005 the 12th amendment of the constitution changed the borders of seven of the provinces*. The provinces (numbered corresponding with the map below and with the capital in parenthesis) are as follows:

1. Western Cape¹ (Cape Town) abbv. WC
2. Northern Cape (Kimberley) abbv. NC
3. Eastern Cape (Bhisho) abbv. EC
4. KwaZulu-Natal (Pietermaritzburg²) abbv. KZN, KZ, or KN
5. Free State (Bloemfontein) abbv. FS
6. North West (Mafikeng) abbv. NW
7. Gauteng (Johannesburg) abbv. GP or GT
8. Mpumalanga (Nelspruit) abbv. MP
9. Limpopo (Polokwane) abbv. LP

* On 18 August 2006 the Constitutional Court ruled that the part of the 12 amendment dealing with the transfer of Matatiele from KwaZulu-Natal to the Eastern Cape was unconstitutional due to insufficient consultation.

¹: The Prince Edward Islands are a South African territory in the sub-antarctic Indian Ocean, for legal purposes considered to be part of the Western Cape.

²: Pietermaritzburg and Ulundi shared being capital of KwaZulu-Natal during 1994–2004.