ENGLAND v SOUTH AFRICA

My new life in England started just as the Rugby World Cup was coming to a very exciting end - so it turned out - for South Africans. We all know the result and I must admit there wasn't too much fanfare about the whole thing in this part of the world.

But that's not really what I wanted to talk about in this post. Since we've been here my wife and I have often been asked to explain how an area or a region in South Africa compares to something similar in England. So I have done a bit of research and thought the following would be interesting.

The size of South Africa is 471,443 square miles while England is around one fifth of that at 50,345 square miles. England, however, is much more crowded. There are 50.4 million people living here while South Africa has 48.6m. That gives population densities of 976 and 101 people per square mile respectively. That amazed me. And living here I certainly get the feeling of England being a lot more crowded than South Africa.

South Africa's gross domestic product (GDP) is $663.95 billion which looks a little bleak against England's $1.9 trillion. On a per capita basis this equates to $38,000 for the English and R13,845 for the South Afrcans. I'm not sure if I have this spot on, but my understanding of this is that on an average per person basis the English produce about three times as much as South Africans.

Hope that all throws a little light on the two countries and puts them in perspective. At the end of the day, though, South Africa are still the Rugby World Champions and will be for another three and a half years.