Welcome to the southern tip of Africa. Here, two great oceans meet, warm weather lasts most of the year, and big game roams just beyond the city lights.

This is where humanity began: our ancestors’ traces are still evident in fossilised footprints 80 000 years old, and in the world’s oldest rock paintings.

Today, this country is the powerhouse of Africa, the most advanced, broad-based economy on the continent, with infrastructure to match any first-world nation.

You can drive on wide, tarred highways all 1,600 kilometres from Messina at the very top of the country to Cape Town at the bottom. Or join eight million passengers who disembark at our airports every year.

Two-thirds of Africa’s electricity is generated here. Forty percent of the phones are here. Twenty percent of the world’s gold is mined here. And almost everyone who visits is astonished at how far a dollar will stretch.

Welcome to the Republic of South Africa.