South Africa
2.5 South Africa Waterways Assessment

South Africa has no commercially navigable rivers and no significant natural lakes that pose a natural barrier to terrestrial transport. The country’s river network is not suited to accommodate large-scale transport. An important factor to consider is that lowland rivers – large, meandering waterways – make up only 9% of South Africa’s total river length. The remaining 91% consists of mountain streams (4%), upper foothill streams (45%) and lower foothill streams (41%). Hence all over land transport within South Africa is undertaken by road and rail transport.

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