10 Strange Secrets About South Africa They Don't Tell You

Subscribe for more journeys like this one. A country inside a country. Penguins on an African beach. Miners who ride to work more than two miles underground. So is South Africa the strangest country on Earth? We count down 10 surprising facts, from the real southern tip of Africa, where a warm ocean meets a cold one, to a hillside in Cape Town where some of the earliest Afrikaans was written in Arabic letters. Along the way: the Sardine Run, flowers that need fire to survive, caves full of stone icicles, a stone circle some call Adam's Calendar, and a diamond rush that started with a teenager's shiny pebble. By Fact 1, you can decide for yourself. South Africans, what's the one place you'd send a first-time visitor that never shows up on a postcard? Tell us in the comments. SOURCES CIA World Factbook · International Hydrographic Organization · SANParks · IUCN Red List · KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board · South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) · UNESCO · Cango Caves · CP Nel Museum, Oudtshoorn · Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Agency · National Library of South Africa · Iziko Museums · Kimberley Mine Museum · Harmony Gold Substrata Geography goes beneath the surface of the world's most fascinating places: the land, the people, and the story that connects them. Subscribe for more journeys like this one. #SouthAfrica #Geography #Africa