South Africa's Population Hits 62 Million Mark: Reveals Stats SA's Census 2022 Report

Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) has made a groundbreaking announcement on 2nd February 2022, stating that the population count of the country is currently at 62 million, marking a 19.8% upsurge since the last census in 2011.

Risenga Maluleke, South Africa's Statistician General, presented the Census22 report to President Cyril Ramaphosa at the Union Buildings. In a first, the 2022 census was conducted digitally, giving households the choice of completing the questionnaire face-to-face, telephonically or online. The digital approach proved pivotally helpful when the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated the census reference point to be shifted from October to February.

According to the report, Gauteng continues to be the most populous province in the nation, with 15.1 million people. Western Cape saw the second-greatest population size with 6.6 million residents. A fascinating highlight from the data was that Nelson Mandela Bay's population had reached over 1.15 million people, and Buffalo City Metro stood at 781,853.

On the language front, South Africa continues to present a unique linguistic diversity. About 24.4% of households conversed in isiZulu, followed by isiXhosa at 16.3% and then Afrikaans at 10.6%.

Furthermore, findings revealed an encouraging figure where six out of ten kids aged between 0–4 years had access to early childhood development programmes. Moreover, the census report showed a significant leap in households getting access to electricity for lighting, increasing from 58.1% in 1996 to 94.7% in 2022.

In response to the census findings, President Cyril Ramaphosa emphasized the crucial role of census data for governmental planning, budgeting, and policy-making at a fundamental level.