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South Africa address format & examples

How to write a South African address

Howzit? Put on your Madiba shirts and say “aweh” (cool) to the South Africa address format guide you’ve been searching for. You can feel like breaking into some Gumboot dancing while excitedly browsing our South African address format examples here and while you try our suite of address validation tools for addresses in South Africa below. Just enter an address, and we'll format, standardize, and validate the address faster than you can play the marimba.

Let’s explore some of the generalities of South African addresses. We’ll even provide you with a South African postal address example. The South African address format for shipping or mailing addresses should be written as follows:

  1. Addressee line - The recipient's full name. Who are you sending things to?
  2. House or building number and street name - The premise number followed by the street name go on this line. They should be included in that order and without separating punctuation.
  3. Locality - The locality will get its very own, special row. Don’t put anything else on this line.
  4. Postal code - The postal code goes on the next line.
  5. Country - Write "ZAF" in all caps on the last line.
South Africa address example

South Africa address examples

Postal box example

1002 Fiona St

PO Box 12

Ridgeway

Johannesburg

2091

ZAF

Smarty address validation tools

Smarty® has a suite of address validation tools that can format, standardize, and validate South Africa addresses, plus addresses in 240+ other countries and territories worldwide. Validate your South African address with our tools.
Use the Single Address Verification Tool to verify and format 1 address at a time, the Bulk Address Validation Tool to verify and format a list addresses simultaneously, or use the International Street Address API to integrate address validation and formatting programmatically into your software systems and workflows.

Postal information

South Africa's national postal system, "South African Post Office," was established in 1788. As of recent data, South African Post Office services approximately 81,570 addresses, reflecting its extensive reach throughout South Africa. The organization manages a substantial network, indicative of its role as a major postal service provider in the region.
Administrative area types and count
9 provinces
Administration area names and abbreviations

Eastern Cape - EC

Free State - FS

Gauteng - GP

KwaZulu-Natal - KZN

Limpopo - LP

Mpumalanga - MP

Northern Cape - NC

North West - NW

Western Cape - WC

Term to describe postal codes
postal code
Postal code in language
postal code
Postal code format
9999
Postal service provider and website

South African Post Office

https://www.postoffice.co.za/

Country information

Put on your Kwaito music and dance for joy. We’re going to go through South Africa address formats with even more examples and even more depth.

Country/territory name
South Africa
ISO3
ZAF
ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code
ZA
ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 country code
ZAF
ISO 3166-1 numeric country code
710
Endonym
Suid-Afrika
Total land area
1,219,090 KM²
Capital
Pretoria (administrative), Cape Town (legislative), Bloemfontein (judicial)
Other major cities
Johannesburg, Durban, Port Elizabeth

Population information

Total population
60,414,495 (2023)
Urban / rural distribution
67% / 33%
Urban population
40,477,712
Rural population
19,936,783
Official language
11 official languages, including Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, English
All languages spoken
Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, English
Most commonly used postal language
English
CC-BY 4.0 from worldbank.org
Now that you've seen our South Africa address examples and have become as wizard at South African address formats, why not expand your expertise even further? Visit the international address formats page for information on other countries and territories we cover.

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