South Africa Election Maps

Votes are currently being counted in the 2019 South African election. The governing party, the African National Congress, won 62% of the vote in the last election in 2014. The ANC are widely expected to be the largest party again in this election, but with a reduced level of support. At the time of writing, with only about 30% of the votes counted, the ANC are currently on around 55% of the votes.

TimesLIVE, News 24 and The Citizen all have live interactive maps showing the latest election results from South Africa. All three maps are very similar and there really isn't much to choose between them. Each map provides a choropleth view showing the leading political party in each province and each provides an overview of the percentage of votes won (so far) by each of the political parties. All three maps show the ANC are currently winning in all South African provinces, except the Western Cape, where the Democratic Alliance currently have the largest share of the votes counted.

The TimesLIVE and News24 maps do provide more detail on the results within each province than The Citizen map. Using the TimesLIVE and News24 maps you can select a province to view the latest results in each municipality within the chosen province. Both of these maps also provide an update on the percentage of votes that have been counted so far.

The News24 map also includes the option to view the results of past South African elections ('99, '04, '09 & '14), which is useful if you want to compare the results from this year's election with the results from previous elections. For example this shows you that the Democratic Alliance were also the biggest party in the Western Cape in the 2014 South African election.

Why Cape Town is Running Dry

Theewaterskloof dam provides half of Cape Town's water. It is about to run dry. According to the latest estimates Cape Town will run out of water on April 16th.

Day Zero: How Cape Town is running out of water is a Guardian article exploring the reasons behind Cape Town's current drought. The article includes an effective visualization of how the drought has effected the dam. A transition between two satellite images of the Theewaterskloof dam, shows the water levels when full and how it looks now. The article also includes mini cut out maps of Cape Town's four key reservoirs, showing how the water in them has shrunk since 2014. The satellite imagery in the article comes from Sentinel 2 & Landsat 8 (to trace the reservoir outlines).

Using a series of satellite images can be particularly effective in showing the scope of water loss in an area. For example in documenting the loss of the Aral Sea. The Aral Sea was once the fourth largest lake in the world. Due to Soviet irrigation projects the Aral Sea is now less than 10% of the size it once was. In fact the eastern basin of what used to be the Aral Sea is now called the Aralkum Desert

Lots of people have used satellite images to document how the Aral Sea has dwindled in size over time. This NASA Earth Observatory feature uses a series of images from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite to document the water loss in the Aral Sea from 2000-2017.

South Africa's Political Killings

Today South Africans are voting in the 2016 Municipal Elections. The ANC has dominated the political landscaped in South Africa since the end of Apartheid. However the poor economy and corruption scandals centered on president Jacob Zuma could seriously damage the ANC's performance in today's election.

The corruption charges against the South African president are not the only problems that the ANC have faced in the run-up to today's election. Over the last three week's a number of mostly ANC politicians have been murdered. More than a dozen politicians have been killed and not one case has been solved.

South African newspaper the Mail & Guardian has mapped all of this year's political assassinations. The Mail & Guardian has used the Esri Story Map template to map the killings. This means that you can explore each assassination by selecting the markers on the map or you can use the forward and back buttons on the map to progress through the killings one by one.

The name of each politician, their political party and the date of the murder are given for each assassination. Where the Mail & Guardian have reported on an assassination a link is also provided to the newspaper's report.

Mapping Cape Town's Townships

There are around 437 informal settlements, or townships, in Cape Town. Places where many Cape Town citizens are forced to live, without occupation rights or security of tenure. These informal settlements mostly have a high density of occupation and very poor sanitation.

Code for Africa has mapped out Cape Town's informal settlements and created a dashboard which allows you to explore issues such as occupation density, the age of each township and the sanitary conditions.

When the map first loads you have the option to follow the stories of two township citizens. These stories provide a personal insight into the living conditions in Cape Town's informal settlements. They also act as a tutorial guide to the map's features. As you progress through these two stories you are shown how to use the map's functions to explore the available township data.

If you select a township on the Struggle for Dignity map you can view data on the selected settlement under the map. This includes the township's name, age, number of households, household density and the number of toilets per household and the type of toilets available.

If you use the buttons at the top of the map you can browse a choropleth view of the number of households, temporary toilets and household density in each of the city's informal settlements.

The Illustrated Map of Johannesburg

Mapping iThemba is an interactive map which explores issues around post-colonial science and drug discovery in South Africa. The map tells the story of iThemba Pharmaceuticals, a pharmaceutical company striving to create 'African solutions for African problems'.

At the center of this interactive is an illustrated map, providing an oblique view of Johannesburg, Pretoria, and the surrounding area. Using the map you can explore the infrastructure and the contextual environment within which iThemba operates. The markers on the map highlight some of these important locations around the iThemba campus and Johannesburg.

At the heart of the map is Joel Russell Huffman's panoramic illustration of Johannesburg. This illustrated map is not drawn to scale and obviously sacrifices geographical accuracy in favor of foregrounding the issues and locations which are most important to the story of iThemba and post-colonial science in South Africa.

Mapping Climate Change in South Africa

Climatracker shows how global warming is likely to affect temperature and rainfall in South Africa.

The map includes two animated choropleth layers; one showing past and future temperatures and the other showing past and future precipitation in South Africa. The map also includes a number of reports into the observable affect and the likely future affect of climate change on the country.

The data for the timeline choropleth layers come from a climate model generated by South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). The timeline shows the data predicted by the model from 1971 to 2099.

Via: Visualoop

Robben Island Street View

Google has released Street View imagery for Robben Island in South Africa. Robben Island is most famous as the prison where Nelson Mandela was held for 18 of the 27 years he served behind bars.

The best way to explore the new Street View imagery is on the Robben Island Museum page on Google's Cultural Institute website. The Robben Island Museum entry includes a guided tour of the prison by former political prisoners. The Robben Island Prison Tour is a guided tour of the prison using the new Google Maps Street View imagery and narration from former political prisoner Vusumsi Mcongo.

The tour includes the view prisoners would have on arriving at the island, a view from inside a guard tower, the hospital ward, the exercise yard and Nelson Mandela's own 2m x 2m cell. Most of these Street View scenes are accompanied by videos in which Vusumsi Mcongo explains what life was like as a prisoner on Robben Island.

South Africa's Election Dot Density Map

A couple of year's ago Adrian Frith created a racial dot density map of South Africa. He has now created a dot density map of the 2014 South African general election. The Election Dot Density Map 2014 contains one dot for every South African voter. The dots on the map are colored by the political party voted for and placed randomly within the voting district.

It is really interesting comparing Adrian Frith's two dot density maps to observe how closely voting for the different South African political parties correlates with racial distribution. Adrian's Mapping South Africa with Dot Distribution map shows racial distribution across South Africa and also the first languages spoken, based on data from the 2011 South African census.


In Johannesburg (voting distribution pictured at the top - racial distribution above) you can see a clear correlation between the racial distribution and the political parties most supported in voting districts. Soweto stands out on the racial distribution map as an area populated almost exclusively by black Africans. In 2014 the district showed overwhelming support for the ANC.

Comparing the two maps also reveals that the districts with the highest white populations tended to show the most support for the Democratic Alliance.


A similar pattern can be seen in Capetown. The districts with an almost exclusively black African population had by far the most ANC voters. The Democratic Alliance was most popular in districts with the highest white population and also seemed to do well in voting districts with a large mixed race population.

Mapping the Cape Fire

Eyewitness News has created a Google Map showing the extent of the wildfires that raged around the Cape Town south peninsula last week.

The fire has affected around 5,000 hectares of land. To help visualize the true extent of the fire Eyewitness News' map, Cape Fire - A Comparison, allows you to overlay a polygon of the affected area overlaid on other locations around the world. The map provides a number of quick links to see the 5,000 hectares overlaid on the map of a number of major cities in South Africa and elsewhere around the world. You can also use an address search to see the polygon overlaid on any other location.

Eyewitness News appear to have created their own algorithm to adjust the size of the polygon relative to the latitude of the mapped location. The Google Maps API actually includes its own geodesic function which you can apply to polygons to enable them to be resized relative to their position on the map. You can view an example of this on this Google Maps API Draggable Polygons code example.

The South African Census Map

Wasi (Xhosa for 'knowledge') is a great tool for exploring South African census and election data. Using the site you can explore a wealth of census and election data at different administrative levels.

At the heart of the tool is a Leaflet map which allows you to search the census data by location. Click on a location on the map and an overlay instantly shows you the area's population, Under the map a huge range of other information about the selected location is also displayed. This includes demographic and economic data and recent election results.

What I like about the map is the way it allows you to drill down from province level to municipalities and then to individual census tracts. The initial map view displays each of the provinces. Select a province on the map and the map automatically zooms to show the province and displays all the election and census data for the selected province. The province is highlighted on the map and the map now displays each of the province's municipalities.

Select a municipality on the map and the map zooms to that municipality, displays all the municipality's election and census data and now highlights all the census tracts in that municipality. If you don't want to drill down to individual ward areas in this way you can also search the map by name.

Mapping the Rhino Poachers

Oxpeckers is a team of journalists dedicated to revealing the stories behind important environmental issues in Africa. The team have recently released an interactive map visualizing the latest information on rhino poaching court cases in South Africa.

The Oxpeckers Rhino Poachers Court Cases map shows the location of court cases involving rhino poaching in the country using data obtained from South Africa’s Ministry of Police. You can select individual markers on the map to read details about individual court cases and you can filter the results on the map by station, date and the name of the accused.

The map provides an engaging portal to this data on rhino poaching court cases. Using a map to visualize the data has proved very successful in communicating news of rhino poaching in South Africa and in attracting new users to Oxpeckers. Oxpeckers say that in the ten days after the release of the map they doubled the number of users on the website and their Facebook audience increased 83% in the week after its launch.

Via: Visual Loop

The South African Dot Map

Dot maps of the USA, showing population distribution by race have proved very popular recently. For example, the Racial Dot Map of America is a fascinating insight into the geographic distribution, population density, and racial diversity in the USA.

South Africa now has its own racial dot distribution map. Mapping South Africa with Dot Distribution shows racial distribution across South Africa and also the first languages spoken, based on data from the 2011 South African census.

Zooming into a city on the map reveals how the legacy of apartheid is a nation still divided geographically and socially by race. Adam Frith, the creator of the map has also created a similar map based on the 2001 census data. Depressingly, comparing the 2001 and 2011 maps again reveals that the pace of racial integration appears to be moving very slowly in South Africa.

Tracking Sharks on Google Maps

Ocearch's Global Shark Tracker has extended its shark tracking app to track sharks off the east coast of North America.

The Global Shark Tracker allows anyone to observe the navigational pattern of 47 tracked sharks. The sharks have been tagged with satellite tracking technology for the purpose of shark conservation and their movements can be followed on this Google Maps based tracker. The Global Shark Tracker is now tracking 35 sharks off the coast of South Africa and 12 off the east coast of America.

The tracker includes a number of useful filters which allows the user to search for individual sharks by name or to view the trails of just male or female sharks or of mature or immature sharks.


The Nova Southeastern University Oceangraphic Research Center are also using Google Maps to track a number of sharks off the east coast, the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere around the world.

The Guy Harvey Research Institute Tracker allows the user to select the sharks to view on the map by location or by individual shark name.

Custom Street View Africa

Thanks to Isuzu Trail View it is now possible to take a virtual Street View drive on some of South Africa's best off-road trails. Isuzu equipped a Isuzu KB with a 360 degree camera and captured custom Street View imagery of four off-road trails.

Users can select any of the four trails and view the 360 degree imagery just as they would with Google Maps Street View. Each trail includes a handy little feature that allows users to capture a picture of any beautiful views that are found whilst navigating a trail and then share the image via social media.


The Nature Valley Trail View is a beautiful map of trails in the Grand Canyon, in Yellowstone National Park and in the Great Smokies.

The map includes a number of trails, each of which can be experienced with a glorious animated custom Street View tour. If you click on the menu link you can select any of the trails and then virtually walk the trail with custom Street Views of the whole trail.

Each tour includes an option to animate a walk on the trail, so you can just sit back and watch as you walk the trail with custom Street Views.

The Google Maps Guide to Cape Town

MapMyWay is a popular guide to events and locations in Cape Town, South Africa. The site uses the Google Maps API to help both locals and visitors explore the city's many attractions.

Using the map it is possible to search for locations and upcoming events either by searching by a specific name or by category. The menu at the top of the map allows users to search by a number of different criteria, including shopping, museums, concerts, theatre and much more.

When the user searches by a specific category the suggested venues are displayed on the map and details for each venue are are also listed beneath the map. The map includes a handy full-screen option that expands the map to take over the whole page. To find out more about a specific location the user can click on a map marker and select the 'read more' option.

Live Game Sightings on Google Maps

Kruger Live is a live game sightings map of Kruger Park in South Africa.

The sightings on the map are generated by park users with the Kruger Park iOS and Android app. As well as reporting live game the app's users can report suspicious activity, such as poaching, including a photo and exact location. This information is then shared with wildlife protection agencies in the park.

All the data gathered by users and shown on the map is shared with the Endangered Wildlife Trust and the University of Cape Town's Zoology Department to track dispersal and the population densities of rare predators.

Tracking Sharks with Google Maps

Ocearch are tracking the position of a number of sharks off the coast of South Africa. The Global Shark Tracker allows anyone to observe the navigational pattern of the tracked sharks.The sharks have been tagged with satellite tracking technology for the purpose of shark conservation and their movements can be followed on this Google Maps based tracker.

Currently 34 sharks are being tracked in total and you can follow them all with the tracker. The tracker includes a number of useful filters which allows the user to search for individual sharks by name or to view the trails of just male or female sharks or of mature or immature sharks.

Can you Find a Volkswagen in Street View?

The Volkswagen Street View Quest is a game created by Volkswagen South Africa which invloves contestants finding Volkswagen cars in Google Maps Street View in South Africa.


The game is very simple. You just need to navigate around South African streets using Google Maps Street View. When you find a Volkswagen car you then drag and drop a map pin onto the car in the Street View.

There are four quests in the competition and the winners of the four quests will take part in a live Street Quest Grand Final to win a host of prizes.

Naming Cape Town with Google Maps

Name Your Hood is an interesting crowd-sourced attempt to name the various districts of Cape Town, South Africa.

Using Name Your Hood you can take a virtual stroll through Cape Town. Blue markers show the names of various stores that are shown in the Street View. If you click on a marker you can visit the store's website.

You can also have a go at naming a Cape Town neighborhood. Just click on one of the defined districts on the Google Map of Cape Town and enter your creative name for the area. All the submitted hood names will then be put before a panel of architects, planners, musicians, local celebrities, city officials and historians.

The panel will create a shortlist of the best names chosen by each community. From this shortlist the best name for each neighbourhood will then be decided by public vote.

Name Your Hood

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World Cup Opening Goal Mapped

I couldn't resist mapping the first goal of the 2010 South African World Cup (and what a goal it was).


The map shows how Dikgacoi (D) bypassed the Mexican defence with a beautifully weighted pass ahead of Tshabalala (T) who fired home from 15 yards, out wide in the Mexican penalty area.

I used the Static Maps API v2 Wizard to create the map on top of the Google Maps satellite image of Soccer City. Click on the image above to see the static map in full size.

I could improve the map I guess by adding the positions of the Mexican defenders (but I think that not even they are sure where they were).

The other alternative could be to overlay a Flash movie of a football on top of the Street View of the Soccer City stadium, but that might just be a little too cheesy.


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