Railroads: 20,952 km route distance total; 34,393 km of 1.067-meter gauge trackage (counts double and multiple tracking as single track); 314 km of 0.61-meter gauge

Highways: 188,309 km total; 54,013 km paved, 134,296 km crushed stone, gravel, or improved earth

Pipelines: 931 km crude oil; 1,748 km refined products; 322 km natural gas

Ports: Durban, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Richard's Bay, Saldanha, Mosselbaai, Walvis Bay

Merchant marine: 9 ships (1,000 GRT or over) totaling 275,684 GRT/273,973 DWT; includes 7 container, 1 vehicle carrier, 1 petroleum, oils, and lubricants (POL) tanker

Civil air: 81 major transport aircraft

Airports: 947 total, 814 usable; 115 with permanent-surface runways; 4 with runways over 3,659 m; 10 with runways 2,440-3,659 m; 209 with runways 1,220-2,439 m

Telecommunications: the system is the best developed, most modern, and has the highest capacity in Africa; it consists of carrier-equipped open-wire lines, coaxial cables, radio relay links, fiber optic cable, and radiocommunication stations; key centers are Bloemfontein, Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth, and Pretoria; 4,500,000 telephones; stations--14 AM, 286 FM, 67 TV; 1 submarine cable; 1 Indian Ocean and 2 Atlantic Ocean INTELSAT stations

NOTE: The information regarding South Africa on this page is re-published from the 1989 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of South Africa Communications 1989 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about South Africa Communications 1989 should be addressed to the CIA.