A striking gender divide in transport choices is highlighted by the latest Gauteng-City Region Observatory’s Quality of Life survey: women are more reliant on minibus taxis than men, and men are more likely to drive cars as their main mode of transport.

Of the more than 3,700 people interviewed, 42% of the women said they primarily travelled by minibus taxi compared with 33% of men; whereas 32% of men said driving was their main way of getting around, against just 22% of women.

Women are also more likely to be passengers in private cars than men. Passengers include people getting a ride with someone they know or paying for a ride in a private car, but excludes e-hailing and meter taxis.

The 2017/18 survey showed that 51% of women relied on minibus taxis, while only 16% drove cars. There has also been an increase in men driving cars – only 27% were driving in 2017.

Minibus taxis and private cars are the two primary modes of transport for people living in Gauteng, according to a province-wide survey conducted by the Gauteng-City Region Observatory (GCRO).

Of the 13,700 respondents, 36% said they relied on private cars and 38% said they used minibus taxis, with the choice differing according to their primary occupation.

More than 70% of respondents in professions generally associated with higher incomes, such as managers and professionals, use private cars, which includes driving as well as riding as a passenger. Even among employed people in lower-income roles, more than a quarter use private cars.

In contrast, car usage drops significantly for students, job seekers and those in elementary occupations (gardeners, general workers and cleaners). For these groups, less than 25% said they used private cars.

Half of the survey’s respondents who are unemployed and looking for work said they relied on minibus taxis.

More people living in Gauteng are driving cars than 10 years ago, according to surveys carried out by the Gauteng-City Region Observatory. Despite being one of the most expensive transport options, the proportion of people driving private cars has increased by almost 60% to 27%.

The GCRO interviewed more than 13,700 people across the province last year, and double that in 2013. Their data offers a glimpse into how people’s transport choices have changed over the years.

In 2013, 7% of people surveyed used buses and trains for their most frequent trips. A decade later, less than 2% said they used these modes of transport.

Travelling by minibus taxi has also decreased: 45% of respondents relied on taxis in 2013/14, but this dropped to 38% in the latest survey. The proportion of people who said walking was their primary means of getting around has increased to 22%.

People in Gauteng are spending significantly more on transport than in 2017, according to a province-wide survey by the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO).

The survey shows that in 2017, 12% of residents surveyed spent between R1,000 and R2,000 a month on transport. Six years later, that had risen to 17% of residents.

Similarly, the proportion of residents spending more than R2,000 a month grew from just 4% in 2017 to 13% by 2023. Altogether, nearly one in three residents spent more than R1,000 a month on transport last year. Even when accounting for inflation and rising living costs, these figures highlight the growing financial burden of transport for many residents.

Other than those who do not spend any money on transport, a smaller proportion of the sample population are spending less than R1,000 a month. One possible reason for this is that more people in the province are driving private cars.

The amount spent on transport in Gauteng varies widely, with residents spending from nothing to R9,500 a month, according to a province-wide survey by the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO). The median monthly spend is R500.

The 2023/4 GCRO survey, which collected data from 13,700 residents, gives insight into the amount spent on transport by individuals as well as the mode of transport used for the ‘longest part of their most frequent trip’.

More than a quarter of respondents (27%) said they primarily drive cars. They spend vastly different amounts, but their median spend is R2,000 a month, which is the same as Gautrain commuters.

Minibus taxis are the most commonly used transport, used by 38% of respondents who spend a median of R350 a month. This is less than that of bus and train users, although few residents said they travelled by bus or train.

Most Gauteng residents fall in the lower socioeconomic class brackets and rely mostly on minibus taxis to get around. However, many say they opt for private cars when they can – either as drivers or passengers, according to the data from the Gauteng-City Region Observatory.

The GCRO’s 2023/24 Quality of Life survey shows that despite private cars being one of the most expensive options, the proportion of people driving has increased from 17% to 27% in the past 10 years.

The survey measures socioeconomic class on a one-to-10 scale based on factors such as household income, employment, education, medical aid membership and internet access. In general, the ratio of cars to other modes of transport increases with each wealth bracket: the higher the class, the more people use cars.

The survey also collects monthly transport spend from each respondent. The poorest spend as little as R200 a month on transport, while the wealthiest spend R2,000.

Despite Bolt and Uber bringing massive changes to the transport landscape in South Africa’s cities, the Gauteng-City Region Observatory’s 2023/24 Quality of Life survey shows that few Gauteng residents make regular use of e-hailing services.

Of the people 13,700 people surveyed, almost two-thirds said they never use e-hailing services at all. For those who do, most only e-hail a couple of times a month. Only 1.2% said they use ‘e-hailing or metered taxis’ as their main mode of transport.

The GCRO surveyed people across the province, including areas far from the big metros where e-hailing services are primarily available. The 2023/4 survey included a separate question on e-hailing specifically.

The majority of regular e-hailing users rely primarily on minibus taxis. They likely take Ubers when minibus taxis aren’t available. More women than men e-hail, and the majority of e-hailing taxi users are in the lower and middle social class brackets.

South Africa’s Jesse February is the African women’s chess champion, winning gold at the 2024 African Individual Chess Championship in Accra. This is her second title, having first won in 2021.

The 27-year-old from Gqeberha is SA’s top-ranking female player and has been a woman international master (WIM) since 2016. The next rung up is woman grandmaster (WGM). The only South African to achieve this is Melissa Greeff, who was 15 when she became a WGM in 2009.

Kenny Solomon is SA’s sole grandmaster and one of three in Sub-Saharan Africa, alongside Zambian Amon Simutowe and Senegal’s Felix Izeta Txabarri.

Although there are 1,800 active grandmasters, less than 1% of players achieve this status.

Russia leads with 179 grandmasters, followed by the US (104), Germany (99), Ukraine (82) and India (81). Africa has 16 grandmasters, most of whom live in North Africa. Egypt has six, Algeria and Tunisia three each, and Morocco one.

The most-watched Netflix show from July to December 2023 was King the Land, a Korean romantic dramedy. The 16-episode series, about a hotel concierge (Im Yoon-ah) entangled with the hotel magnate’s rebellious son (Lee Jun-ho), was watched for 630-million hours by 33.2-million unique viewers.

One Piece, an adaptation of the popular manga, was the second most-watched show, according to Netflix’s What We Watched Engagement Report released in May 2024. The report provides data on 15,994 titles on the platform.

The two most-watched movies were Leave the World Behind and Heart of Stone.

Netflix subscribers watched 22 titles for over 200-million hours. Across 15,994 titles, the average viewing time was 5.6-million hours.

The average is skewed by the most-watched titles, with the median watch time 1-million hours, indicating that while some shows reached high viewership numbers, the majority of Netflix titles attracted smaller audiences.

Twenty-five-year-old Ioannis Theodosiou is the top-earning South African e-sports player. His winnings to date amount to $196,451 (R3.7-million). Theodosiou, who goes by the player name JT, won most of his money by playing Counter-Strike Global Offensive. CS:GO is a first-person shooter game.

Half of the South Africa’s top 10 highest-earning pro gamers also compete in the same game.

Football games such as Fifa and Rocket League, where soccer is played with flying cars, are responsible for 39% of the winnings. Julio ‘Beast’ Bianchi ranks third on the earnings list with $73,020 in winnings from Fifa 21.

The current most-successful pro gamer in terms of earnings is 30-year-old Johan Sundstein from Denmark, who has won more than $7-million. Sundstein, who plays Dota 2, has played more than 130 tournaments. Dota, which is short for Defense of the Ancients, is a multiplayer online battle arena game.

The most expensive guitar sold at auction is a 1959 Martin D-18E. It belonged to Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, who played it for their performance on MTV Unplugged in 1993. The guitar sold for $6-million in 2020.

The world’s second-most expensive guitar was also once owned by the grunge-rock pioneer. His 1969 Fender Mustang sold for $4.6-million in 2022. Cobain plays it in the band’s Smells Like Teen Spirit 1991 music video, which has been viewed on YouTube 1.8-billion times.

A third Cobain instrument – a 1993 Fender Mustang – sold for $1.59-million, fetching the 10th highest price paid for a guitar at auction.

The ‘Black Strat’ owned by Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour sold for $3.97-million when it went on auction in 2019. This is the guitar played in the Comfortably Numb solo, Gilmour’s No 1 from 1970-1986.

The iconic modified instrument is the subject of a book by Phil Taylor, Gilmour’s guitar technician.

About 117,000 people born in South Africa were living in the United States in 2020, up 80% in two decades.

The US is also the preferred destination for South African refugees seeking asylum.

Statistics SA’s latest migration report does not give reasons why South Africans sought asylum in the first place, but it does show that one-third of the total 4,258 asylum-seekers in 2022 hoped to get into the US.

Their chances appear to be pretty slim. According to the US Department of Homeland Security, 56 South Africans were granted asylum between 2013 and 2022. There are three years (2014, 2016 and 2017) when data was ‘withheld to limit disclosure’, so that number may be higher.

People seeking residence status in the US for more conventional reasons seem to be more successful. There was a sharp uptick in the number of South Africans obtaining permanent residence in 2022.

The number of South Africans returning to live in the country has dropped by nearly 40% in the past decade.

According to Statistics SA’s latest migration report, just under 28,000 citizens returned to South Africa in 2022. This is almost 18,000 less than 11 years ago, which is when the previous census was conducted.

Returning South Africans choice of province has also shifted, with 35% choosing the Western Cape in 2022. A decade previously, only 23% chose the Western Cape whereas almost 39% chose Gauteng.

The number of South Africans living in foreign countries has steadily been increasing, Stats SA data shows. In 2000, there were about 500,000 South Africans living abroad. In 2020, this had climbed to just over 900,000.

The UK is home to the largest number of South African ex-pats, with 247,336 living there. Second-most popular destination is Australia (199,690), followed by the US (117,321), Canada and New Zealand.

Just more than 900,000 South Africans were living abroad in 2020, according to Statistics SA’s Migration Profile Report for South Africa 2023. That number has been steadily increasing since 2000, when it was about 500,000.

The UK is home to the most South African expats, with about 247,000 living there in 2020. The number has increased by about 80% since 2000.

Australia and New Zealand are among the top 5 chosen destinations for South Africans, with about 273,000 South Africans there in 2020. This is more than double the 106,000 who lived there in 2000.

The US is the third most-popular destination. About 117,000 people born in South Africa were living in the US in 2020, up 80% from 20 years ago.

Canada seems to have cooled off because the number of South Africans living there has increased by only 30% since 2000.

More than half (54%) of South Africans aged 16 and older who live in the UK have higher education qualifications, according to the Office of National Statistics.

Of the migrant populations living in the UK, the Nigerians have the largest proportion of qualified people, with 68% holding higher education qualifications, such as a degree.

Around half of UK residents born in India, Italy and Germany have higher education qualifications, compared with less than one-third of people born in England.

The number of South Africans living in the UK has increased by 80% since 2000 to about 247,000, according to Statistics SA’s latest migration profile report. The last UK census, which was conducted in March 2021, says there were 205,000 South Africans living in England and Wales alone.

There are just more than 900,000 South Africans living abroad. The UK is top destination of choice, followed by Australia and the US.

There are 37,400 dollar millionaires living in South Africa, more than double any other African country. Egypt, in second place, has 15,600 dollar millionaires and Nigeria has 8,200, according to the latest Africa Wealth Report published by Henley & Partners.

Johannesburg has 12,300 people with assets worth more than $1-million, the most of any city in Africa. Three of the top 10 places with the most millionaires are in the Western Cape: Cape Town (7,400), the Cape Winelands (Stellenbosch) and the Garden Route. Durban, Umhlanga and Ballito as well as Pretoria also fall within the top 10.

Forbes 2024 lists Nigerian industrialist Aliko Dangote as the continent’s richest person with a net worth of $13.5-billion. He is followed by South Africa’s Johann Rupert ($10.1-billion) and the Oppenheimer family ($9.4 billion).

The data tracks the movements of more than 150,000 individuals.

Almost a third of South Africans living abroad are in Australia and New Zealand. In 2020, about 273,000 South Africans lived in those two countries, according to Statistics SA’s Migration Profile Report for South Africa 2023.

Australia and New Zealand are among the top 5 most-popular countries for South Africans to move to. In the past 20 years, the number of South Africans in Australia has increased by 150% and by 190% in New Zealand.

South Africans who have moved to Australia are also often highly educated: 43% have a bachelor’s degree or higher. One third (36%) of the South African-born people living there were working as professionals and 15% as managers, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Just over 900,000 South Africans were living abroad in 2020. The number increased from 500,000 in 2000.

Fewer South African children are being adopted by foreigners, with the number dropping almost 60% since 2006, when 256 children found new families.

Only 108 inter-country adoptions were recorded in 2022, according to Statistics South Africa’s latest Migration Profile Report.

The government’s promotion of reunification over adoption is part of the reason for the decrease, says Robyn Wolfson Vorster, a child protection activist and the founder of For the Voiceless.

She says the government is resistant to adoption between people of different races as well as to inter-country adoptions, which it believes promotes child trafficking. The adoption process by foreigners carries a particularly heavy administrative burden.

Just over 12% of children in South Africa have lost either one or both of their parents, with the highest number of orphans in the Free State (16%), according to the 2022 General Household Survey.

The frequency of divorce generally declines after the fifth year of marriage. Of the couples who went their separate ways between 2018 and 2022, 58 had been married for more than 50 years.

Nearly half of the couples (48%) who filed for divorce had been married for a decade or less, according to data from Statistics SA. The highest number of couples called it quits after 5 years.

The year with the most divorces registered in the past four years was 2019 with a total of 23,710 cases. This is followed closely by 2022, with 20,196 divorce cases registered.

In 2022, more than 80% of divorces were from first-time marriages, with more wives than husbands filing the divorce. Less than 2% of people were divorcing after at least their third marriage.

Statistics SA collects this data through surveys conducted at divorce courts.

Showmax and Netflix are battling for streaming dominance in Africa. Netflix says it commissioned 16 shows in South Africa and 3 in Nigeria between 2016 and 2021. Netflix also licensed 283 shows in Nigeria and 173 in South Africa.

On Showmax’s website, a section on local original content displays 39 shows produced in South Africa and 14 in Nigeria.

Netflix says it spent $125-million in operations in South Africa between 2016 and 2022. This includes the 16 films and mini-series Netflix commissioned, such as the teen drama Blood and Water and the comedy mini-series How to Ruin Christmas.

In the same period, Netflix invested $23.6-million in Nigerian content resulting in 3 commissioned titles and 283 licenced ones.

At the top of Netflix’s most-watched shows between January and June 2023 is Unseen: Season 1, a South African thriller starring Gail Mabalane.

US-based Netflix is expanding its operations in Africa, where it hopes to become the largest digital streaming company. Its competition, especially in South Africa, is MultiChoice’s Showmax.

Specific subscriber numbers for these services in Africa are hard to come by. Late last year, global tech research company Omdia declared Showmax the new leader, with 2.1-million subscribers on the continent in November 2023 compared with Netflix’s 1.8-million subscribers.

The bulk of these subscribers are in South Africa, where the streaming audience still favours Netflix. There are 1.2-million Netflix subscribers in South Africa versus Showmax’s 937,000 subscribers, according to the UK’s Digital TV Research.

Amazon Prime trails some way behind Showmax, with 391,000 subscribers. Disney+ has 312,000 subscribers directly paying for the platform from South Africa. Digital TV Research did not include subscribers who get Disney+ through their DStv package.

Canal+ looks poised to become the dominant provider of satellite TV in Africa. Already the most popular choice in French-speaking Africa, it recently grew its stake in South African pay-TV group MultiChoice to 35%. This triggered a mandatory offer, according to company rules set by South Africa’s Takeover Regulation Panel (TRP).

Although Canal+ said it was not obliged to make an offer to shareholders as it has limited voting rights as a foreign-owned company, the TRP disagreed. Now Canal+ has said it will make a firm offer by 8 April.

The continent is split three ways when it comes to TV services: southern and eastern Africa are dominated by MultiChoice, the parent of DStv, SuperSport, Showmax and GOtv; central and west Africa are dominated by Canal+; and the Shahid network dominates north Africa. The divisions are mostly along language lines: English, French and Arabic, respectively.

Despite the pink halo cast by Barbieland, less than a third of 2023’s biggest films were told from the perspective of a female character. At 28%, it is even lower than the previous year’s 33% and the lowest percentage of movies with a female protagonist since 2017.

The study of last year’s top 100 grossing movies in the US shows that just 35% of all speaking characters were women, a decrease from 37% in 2022. Ten years ago, women held 30% of speaking roles. In 2002, when the study began, it was 28%.

In their analysis of more than 2,200 characters, researchers at San Diego State University found that more men than women had speaking roles in a staggering 77% of the movies. Only 18% had more female than male characters, and 5% featured equal numbers of female and male characters. The number of women in major roles remained at 38%.

Barbie, The Super Mario Brothers Movie and Oppenheimer were the top-performing films at the box office in 2023. Barbie and Super Mario both earned more than $1-billion, putting them in the top-20 highest-earning movies released since 1977.

Barbie has a way to go on her tippy-toes to reach the top earners, Avatar (2009) and Avengers: Endgame (2019), which have earned close to $3-billion each.

There’s a clear pattern in the top 100: 40% are in the action sci-fi genre. Five Avengers films are in the top 20. Star Wars has 2 in the top 20.

Animated movies are also box office favourites – there are 23 in the top 100 – as are adventure fantasies like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Carribbean – there are 22 in the top 100.

Newer films are more likely to earn more revenue for obvious reasons, which makes Titanic, a romantic drama released in 1997, a real outlier at number 4.

From January to June 2023, The Night Agent: Season 1 was Netflix’s most-watched show, with viewers dedicating more than 812-million hours to it. In second place was Ginny & Georgia Season 2, while its predecessor ranked 9th.

The top 10 shows each garnered viewership exceeding 200-million hours.

The Netflix ‘What We Watched’ engagement report covers 18,000 titles aired by the network between January and June 2023.

Only 24 of the 18,000 plus titles were watched for more than 200-million hours and the average viewing time was 5.13-million hours, though this was heavily influenced by the top-ranking shows.The median watch time was 700,000 hours.

All but one of the top 10 shows were distributed globally by Netflix. The exception was the Spanish-language La Reina del Sur. Season 3 of the show was the 7th most-watched title, racking up almost 430-million hours of viewing.

The most-watched Netflix show from January to June 2023 was The Night Agent Season 1. Subscribers spent more than 812-million hours watching the show. Ginny & Georgia Season 2 was the second most-watched show. Season 1 of Ginny & Georgia is in 9th spot.

This is according to Netflix’s ‘What We Watched’ engagement report released in December 2023, which provides data on 18,000 titles on the platform.

The top 10 shows were all viewed for more than 200-million hours. Of the more than 18,000 titles only 0.13%, or 24, were watched for more than 200-million hours.

The average viewing time was 5.13-million hours but this was skewed by a few top titles. The median watch time for the 18,000 titles was 700,000 hours, indicating that while a few shows such as The Night Agent reached high viewership numbers, the majority of Netflix titles attracted much smaller audiences.

Hosting a traditional Christmas lunch for 12 of your favourite friends and family this year is going to cost you about R2,700.

You’ll need to budget about a third of that for the main course. A 6kg turkey, which should feed 12 to 15 people, is the most expensive item at R90 a kilo or R540. At a recommended 200g per serving, gammon works out to be a much more reasonable option, costing R179 for 1.9kg.

Laying on drinks – sparkling wine, wine, Coca-Cola and beer – will cost about R890, while dessert will eat up about 21% of your budget. Even though no one really enjoys it, no Christmas table is complete without a fruit cake (R170 for 800g). And don’t forget the crackers, which cost R260 for 12.

This menu was collated with prices collected at a well-known retailer in the Rosebank Mall in Johannesburg on 12 December.

The South African tourism accommodation market has almost recovered to pre-Covid levels according to Stats SA. In 2022 the accommodation industry generated R23-billion, a recovery on the previous two years, but still R10-billion less than the R33-billion earned in 2019.

All types of accommodation have seen a good recovery since 2020 led by caravan parks and campsites. Both were back up to almost 90% of 2019 booking levels in 2022. Hotels, self-catering establishments and bed and breakfasts have also started to recover, ahead of guesthouses.

Generally speaking hotels tend to be the most popular type of holiday accommodation with 2 out of 3 holidaymakers opting for a hotel room. Further behind is self-catering accommodation, bed and breakfasts and guesthouses. Camping sites make up the smallest portion.

Peak seasons for holidaymakers are June and December while December is usually the period with higher overall revenue for accommodation providers.

Just over 2.4-million people, or 4% of South Africa's population, were born outside the country, according to Census 2022. This is an 11% increase since the last census in 2011. Between the 2001 and 2011 censuses, the increase was 113%. The top 5 countries where migrants were born remain Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Lesotho, Malawi and the UK. Just over 1-million people from Zimbabwe live in South Africa, a 51% increase since 2011. The number of people from Malawi and Ethiopia has doubled. People from the other countries of origin in the top 10 – the UK, Namibia, India, Nigeria and Zambia – have decreased since 2011. Half of all international migrants live in Gauteng and 16% live in the Western Cape.

Gauteng is a magnet for migrants. It's not only foreigners who are drawn to South Africa's economic hub: 4-million people who live there have migrated from another part of the country, according to Stats SA's Census 2022. The Western Cape has 1.67-million internal migrants, the second-highest number. Those 2 provinces account for 70% of the country’s internal migrants.

Limpopo is the birthplace of about a third of the internal migrants living in Gauteng. Two-thirds of the Western Cape's migrants are from the Eastern Cape. The Eastern Cape had the highest 'out-migration' numbers, 2-million people, followed by Limpopo, 1.66-million people.

The Western Cape is the place people are least likely to leave – for another part of South Africa at least – which could explain why it’s now the third most-populous province.

When was the last time you phoned someone under the age of 70 on a landline? Can't remember? That’s not surprising, because only 6% of South Africa's households have a landline, according to Stats SA's Census 2022. These days, if you're going to contact somebody, you're going to use a cellphone. Nearly all (92%) households own a working cellphone. A lot has changed in the past 20 years. In 2001, one in 4 households (24%) had a landline and only 32% had a working cellphone. Nowadays, a family is more likely to have satellite TV (56% of households) than a landline. Owning a cellphone, however, doesn't necessarily mean a household has access to the internet. One in 5 households (21%) still has no access to internet services.

Nothing, not even the deep devotion of a Golden retriever, can touch the stratospheric popularity of the French bulldog in South Africa. Figures from the Kennel Union of Southern Africa show 1,298 Frenchies were registered last year compared with 66 in 2012 – that's close to a 2,000% increase in just 10 years.

Comical and friendly, the stocky, flat-faced, bat-eared pup offers a lot in a small package. They've certainly gained attention on social media – there are 38.7-million posts tagged with #frenchbulldog on Instagram – and count celebrities as owners including Lady Gaga, Megan Thee Stallion and Dwayne Johnson.

But they are dogs prone to breathing, spinal, eye and skin conditions. Weighing an average of 10kg, they come with a hefty price tag of between R25,000 to R80,000.

London has the slowest rush-hour traffic, with the average car commuter travelling 14km/h in peak hour and losing 325 hours a year – the equivalent of almost 41 working days, according to data from TomTom, the navigation technology company which collects data in 390 cities.

In South Africa, Pretoria is the most congested with commuters losing the equivalent of 18 working days to sitting in traffic. In Cape Town, drivers spend 16.5 working days in traffic, while Joburgers lose 15 working days, moving at an average speed of 37km/h. Durbanites positively speed along at 41km/h.

Travel time is affected by the number of cars, the road infrastructure, speed limits and traffic management, such as out-of-order traffic lights.

To have 10 friends over for a Heritage Day braai (barbeque) 5 years ago would have cost you R1,044. In 2023, according to the latest data from Stats SA, the same braai – meat, beer, potatoes and some sides – will cost you R1,437, or 38% more.

Of all the items on our 'braai day' shopping list, biltong has increased the most (60%) since January 2017, which is when Stats SA started recording the price: 1kg of biltong will cost you R400; 5 years ago the same amount cost R250. The price of a 2-litre tub of ice-cream has shot up 53% from R49 in 2017 to R76.

Almost a quarter of the world’s countries recognise sign language as an official language.

Four African countries – Kenya, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe – have given the language, which uses hand movements and facial expressions to communicate, official recognition. It was signed into law as South Africa’s 12th official language in July 2023.

Almost 40-million people in Africa have moderate or higher levels of hearing loss, according to the World Health Organization. Of these, 4-million live in South Africa.

An official language has legal status and must be integrated into day-to-day state business and the education system.

There are more than 20,500 Airbnb listings in the broader Cape Town area, most of which are in the city bowl and Atlantic seaboard. There are 10,985 individual hosts in Cape Town – 40% have just 1 listing; 12% have 2 listings.

There are, however, 12 hosts connected to between 50 and 100 listings, and 5 with more than 100 listings. These 17 hosts are linked to 1,443 (17%) of the listings.

Hosts with multiple listings are more likely to be running a business, are unlikely to be living in the property, and may be in violation of short-term rental laws designed to protect residential housing, says advocacy group InsideAirbnb.

The SABC has all but lost the battle to enforce TV licence fees. In a parliamentary briefing in September 2023, SABC board chair Khathutshelo Ramukumba said the 'evasion' rate was about 87%. In 2019, it was 69%. There were 10.5-million owners liable for TV licence fees in 2022. Of these, 1.9-million settled their fees in full or in part. Annual TV licence fees raised R815-million for the state-owned broadcaster in 2022, R152-million less than in 2019.

Most of South Africa's tourists in June 2023 came from other African countries. In fact, one in four visitors arrived from Zimbabwe, more than from Europe, the Americas and Asia combined. Most visitors said they came for a holiday. Only 3% came for business. South Africa's other neighbours – Mozambique, Lesotho, Eswatini and Botswana – were the source of 46% of holiday visitors.

In 2021, more than 7,000 babies with the surname Dlamini were born in South Africa. The surname has eSwatini origins and translates to variations of ‘one who eats during the day’, according to Professor Sihawukele Ngubane of the University of KwaZulu-Natal. The Nkosi surname belongs to 6,499 babies born in 2021. It is an Nguni word meaning chief.

Taylor Swift’s dominance over the charts continued last week with 25 of the top 100 songs by her. The release of ‘Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)’ is the singer’s 12th #1 album. Only The Beatles, Jay-Z and Drake have had 12 or more #1 albums.

Four of Swift’s albums are in the top 10. 11 are included in the top Billboard 200.

She is also the only living artist to have 10 albums in the top 200 simultaneously. This has only been achieved by four other acts: Prince, David Bowie, Whitney Houston and The Beatles.

Two new bronze statues of Nelson Mandela will be unveiled in the Eastern Cape on Mandela Day, which commemorates his birthday on 18 July.

One is outside the Nelson Mandela Museum in Mthatha, the other in Qunu, the village where Madiba spent his childhood. The two statues cost R3-million.

There are at least 40 statues of Mandela around the world. The tallest figurative sculpture is at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, which is 9 meters high.

Mandela was South Africa’s first democratically elected president. Note – Edited to clarify that the Union Building sculpture is world’s tallest figurative statue.

Although less than 60% of South Africans say they use Facebook, it is still the social media platform of choice for major SA brands.

In 2023, 84% of companies surveyed as part of the SA Social Media Landscape report using Facebook as a marketing platform. This is up from 81% last year, but down 12 percentage points from 2021’s 96%.

Despite attempted challenges from Instagram and upstart TikTok, local brands are still choosing to spend the majority of their social media budget on Facebook.

Most of the companies (64%) spend less than R10,000 a month on social media advertising, with only 13% spending more than R50,000 a month.

Business usage of LinkedIn, the ‘sober professional social platform’, dropped from 80% to 76%, but it saw a healthy share of ad spend.

Most us have tried to solve the Rubik’s cube but none of us has been as successful at ‘cubing’ as Max Park who earlier this month set a world record of 3.13 seconds for solving the traditional 3X3X3 cube.

Max Park of the US is the undisputed champion of the cube. As a child his autism meant he lacked the fine motor skills to perform many everyday tasks.

He overcame this and today he holds the 3X3, 4X4, 5X5, 6X6, 7X7 and the 3X3-one-handed cube records.

Melokuhle, which means ‘to uphold beautiful things’ in isiZulu, is still the most common name for newborn girls in South Africa. It is also one of the favourite names among parents of baby boys.Enzokuhle, also a name popular on both lists over the past few years, fell out of the top five in 2021. The name is isiZulu for ‘do good things’. It was the most popular name for new babies in the country in both 2017 and 2018.

The G20 is a bloc of the world’s 19 biggest economies and the European Union. All but three of the 19 countries will be at zero growth by the end of the century.

Half of the people living in Africa are 19 years old or younger, which makes it the youngest continent. With an average birth rate of 4.3 children per woman, its population is projected to nearly triple by the end of the century.

In March 2023 more than 187,000 overseas tourists arrived in the country, the majority from the UK, USA, and Germany.

Europeans make up the majority of ‘overseas’ tourists during this period, accounting for just over 120,000 of the 187,000 arrivals.

South Africans have collectively made almost R17-million in winnings off this first-person shooter game. Almost R3-million of that belongs to Johnny Theodosiou, South Africa’s highest-paid e-sports player. All his winnings come from playing CS:GO.

An anonymous man in his 50s became South Africa’s biggest PowerBall winner of all time when he won R232-million in February 2019. The winning ticket was bought at an OK Mini Mart in Tygerdal, Cape Town.Other big winners include a grandfather from Bloemfontein, a holidaymaker in Mossel Bay, a pensioner from Johannesburg and a woman who had lost her job because of the pandemic.

As much as 76% of food waste in South Africa occurs in the early stages of production (losses before and after harvesting, processing and packaging). Almost a quarter of food waste happens during the retail (6%) and consumption stages (18%).

One of the highest bungee jumps in the world is from the Bloukrans Bridge on the Garden Route. Since 1990, people have been chasing adrenaline by plunging 216m from the bridge near Nature’s Valley in the Western Cape.

Of 15 chocolates we looked at, Crunchies had the highest sugar content per 100g

How powerful is your passport?

The Seychelles has the most powerful passport in Africa with visa-free access into 153 countries

The cost of a mince pie

SA’s overseas visitors pick up

Most common surnames in SA

Streaming music costs in SA

Same-sex marriages are legal in 33 countries* globally. SA is the only country in Africa where it is legal.

SA’s top 10 radio stations

Top 10 domestic films in 2021

Casinos lose out to Covid-19

South Africa’s casinos

Top 10 box office films in SA – 2021

TV streaming options in SA

How far does your passport go?

Local non-fiction books dominate

South African music festival prices

Most-used emojis worldwide

African art is getting international attention and is being bought for substantial prices.

Ghanaian artist Amoako Boafo’s Hands Up sold for $3.4-million at Christie’s in 2021, a personal record for the artist.

Does South Africa have the most public holidays on the continent?

There are times – especially during the month of April – when it feels like South Africa must have the most public holidays in the world, but the truth is that we don’t even have the most in Africa.

That honour goes to Egypt, which has 21 public holidays. South Africa is in the top 6 though just below a block of countries with 16 days.

Sudan rounds out the bottom of the table with just five official public holidays.

Post-Covid tourism to SA picks up