Country comparison: Nigeria / South Africa

This country comparison is a concise, tabular overview of numerous data from our respective country pages for Nigeria and South Africa. For further information and explanations, we provide many details per country that go far beyond this comparison. For example, there are separate sub-pages for both countries on economy, climate, energy, refugees, inflation, population and much more.
In addition, we offer several international comparisons on individual topics, which are also linked on this page.

General information

	Nigeria	South Africa
Region:	Western Africa	Southern Africa
Area:	923,770 km²	1,219,090 km²
Government form:	Federal presidential republic	Parliamentary republic
Independent since:	1960 AD	1910 AD
Capital:	Abuja	Pretoria

Population

Details for Nigeria and South Africa

	Nigeria	South Africa
Population:	211,401,000	60,042,000
Inhabitants/km²:	228.8	49.3
Life expectancy males:	Ø 54 years	Ø 61 years
Life expectancy females:	Ø 56 years	Ø 68 years
Average age:	Ø 18.6 years	Ø 28.0 years
Birthrate:	37.01 ‰	19.77 ‰
Deathrate:	11.42 ‰	9.38 ‰
Migrationrate:	-0.21 ‰	-0.12 ‰

Quality of life

Values from 0 (bad) to 100 (very good)
See also: Explanations and country ranking on quality of life

	Nigeria	South Africa
Political stability:	18	47
Civil rights:	24	54
Health:	12	31
Climate:	54	95
Cost of Living:	57	49
Popularity:	39	40

Economy

Details for Nigeria and South Africa

	Nigeria	South Africa
Currency:	Naira (1 NGN = 100 Kobo)	South African Rand (1 ZAR =100 Cents)
Unemployment rate:	9.8 %	33.6 %
Inflation rate:	16.95 %	4.61 %
Cost of Living: (USA = 100%)	41.84 %	47.12 %
Commercial taxes and contributions:	34.80 %	29.20 %
Average income:	2,100 US$	6,440 US$
Corruption index:	76 (very bad)	56 (bad)

	NGA: total	per 1000 inh.	ZAF: total	per 1000 inh.
Gross domestic product:	440,777 M US$	2.09 M US$	419,946 M US$	6.99 M US$
Gross national product:	444,040 M US$	2.10 M US$	386,861 M US$	6.44 M US$
Exported goods:	39,937 M US$	0.19 M US$	130,812 M US$	2.18 M US$
Imported goods:	72,178 M US$	0.34 M US$	104,784 M US$	1.75 M US$

Infrastructure

Details for Nigeria and South Africa

	NGA: total	per 1000 inh.	ZAF: total	per 1000 inh.
Roadways:	195,000 km	0.92 km	750,000 km	12.49 km
Railways:	3,798 km	0.02 km	20,986 km	0.35 km
Harbours:	791	0.0037	105	0.0017
Passenger airports:	22	0.0001	22	0.0004

Energy balance

Details for Nigeria and South Africa

	NGA: total	per 1000 inh.	ZAF: total	per 1000 inh.
Energy consumption:	24.72 bn kWh	116,934.33 kWh	207.10 bn kWh	3.45 m kWh
Energy production:	29.35 bn kWh	138,835.87 kWh	234.50 bn kWh	3.91 m kWh
Energy export:	0.00 kWh	0.00 kWh	16.55 bn kWh	275,640.40 kWh
Energy imports:	0.00 kWh	0.00 kWh	10.56 bn kWh	175,876.90 kWh
CO2 emissions:	115.28 m t	545.32 t	439.64 m t	7,322.21 t

Telecommunication

Details for Nigeria and South Africa

	Nigeria	South Africa
International dialing:	+234	+27
Internet domain:	.ng	.za

	NGA total	NGA per 1000 inh.	ZAF total	ZAF per 1000 inh.
Landlines:	107,031	1	2,098,802	35
Mobile cellulars:	204,228,678	966	95,959,439	1598
Internet server:	1,234	0	4,761,000	79
Internet users:	75,047,250	355	42,029,397	700
Broadband Internet:	65,313	0	1,303,057	22

Healthcare system

Details for Nigeria and South Africa

	Nigeria	South Africa
Hospital beds per 1000 inh.:	0.50	2.80
Physicians per 1000 inh.:	0.38	0.91
Diabetes:	3.1 %	12.7 %
Malaria:	291.9 %	1.7 %
HIV:	0.44 %	6.90 %
Tuberculosis:	2.19 ‰	5.54 ‰
Tuberculosis cure rate:	88.0 %	79.0 %
Smokers:	3.7 %	20.3 %

Climate

We also provide a more detailed climate comparison of both countries.
The data for each country can be found here: Nigeria and South Africa

	Nigeria	South Africa
Daytime temperatures:	33.7 °C	24.8 °C
Nighttime temperatures:	21.6 °C	11.7 °C
Water temperature:	26.6 °C	19.6 °C
Rel. humidity:	61 %	62 %
Rain days:	6.2	4.7
Sunshine hours per day:	7.2	8.5

Native languages

	Nigeria	South Africa
Zulu:	n/a	22.7 %
Yoruba:	21.4 %	n/a
Hausa:	21.1 %	n/a
Ibo:	18.1 %	n/a
Xhosa:	n/a	16.0 %
Afrikaans:	n/a	13.5 %
Fula:	11.3 %	n/a
English:	n/a	9.6 %
Sepedi:	n/a	9.1 %
Tswana:	n/a	8.0 %
Sotho:	n/a	7.6 %
Ibibio:	5.6 %	n/a
Tsonga:	n/a	4.5 %
Kanuri:	4.1 %	n/a
Edo:	3.3 %	n/a
Swazi:	n/a	2.5 %
Venda:	n/a	2.4 %
Tiv:	2.3 %	n/a
Ndebele:	n/a	2.1 %
Ijo:	1.8 %	n/a
Bura:	1.6 %	n/a
other:	9.4 %	2.0 %

Religions

	Nigeria	South Africa
Christianity:	40.0 %	68.6 %
Islam:	50.0 %	1.5 %
Nondenominational:	n/a	15.1 %
Native religions:	10.0 %	n/a
Jewry:	n/a	0.2 %
other:	0.0 %	14.6 %

Data inventory and updates

A country comparison like this can be based on several hundred individual data items from dozens of different sources. All data are based on the most recent data available to us. Most of them refer to the previous year and are updated around March of the following year. If a country has not yet published data for the most recent or penultimate year, we present the most recent official data. Updates are made on an ongoing basis depending on the subject area or source, so there is no single "cutoff date" for this comparison. Sources for almost all data can be found on our respective country pages.

Nigeria	South Africa
All information: Nigeria	All information: South Africa
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