Why is South Africa abbreviated as ZA instead of SA?

South Africa is usually abbreviated as ‘ZA’ where most people expected the country’s identity to be shortened as SA.

Even when it comes to the South Africa’s designated country level domain extension (ccTLD) on the internet is .co.za and not .sa.

So, why is South Africa known as ‘za’ instead of ‘sa?’

Some say it is a legacy of when Dutch was an official language in South Africa, and while Afrikaans effectively replaced it after 1925, its influence appeared strong enough for ‘ZA’, an abbreviation of Zuid-Afrika.

It was also to be adopted as the international vehicle registration code in 1936 instead of ‘SA’, short for Suid-Afrika.

Therefore, the identity was derived from the Dutch Zuid-Afrikaanse.

In addition, the abbreviation ‘SA’ had been adopted as the code for the Territory of the Saar Basin in 1920 and was used until as late as 1935, so it would not have been practical to reassign it to South Africa after such a short amount of time.

It would further be used again for the Saar Protectorate between 1947 and 1956.

ZA versus SA

Later on, ‘SA’ was espoused as the international vehicle registration code for Saudi Arabia, before being replaced by ‘KSA’, short for ‘Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’, although it became the ISO country code in 1974.

Cape Town the city at the southern tip of Africa was established by the Nederlands (Netherlands) in 1652 as a halfway house to the East Indies. Their language was Dutch or Hollans (Holland).

In that language South Africa is Zuid-Afrika abbreviated as ‘ZA.’

Although the Cape Colony was eventually taken over permanently in 1806 after the Napoleonic wars by the British (for the second time), Dutch remained a language used by a large portion of the former settlers.

Afrikaans, an African language derived largely from Dutch, but also with some German and various indigenous language elements finally took over from Dutch and when Zuid became Suid.

Afrikaans still remains an official language in the post 1994 era.

In fact, there are now 11 official languages in South Africa!

Only the San language is not official.

The former Transvaal province prior to the Anglo Boer War of 1899-1902 was known as the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (ZAR).

The South African international vehicle designation is ZA.

Long ago, when the use of international number plates for motor vehicles was set out, there were so few motor vehicles in South America that the whole continent was given the international identification SA.

A number plate for South Africa was then given the identification ZA since Dutch was an official language in South Africa.

Because at the time international car registration letters were allocated SA was taken by Saudi Arabia and USA was taken by the United States of America.

The suffix for South African web addresses is similarly “za”

When South African established its own currency in 1961 and decimalized, £1 became R2 or two Rand.

The three character shorthand version of the South African Rand therefore logically became ZAR.

Others believe that SA has already been taken by Saudi Arabia, so the old Dutch name for South Africa, namely, Zuid Afrika, has to be used.

ZA is the official International Standard Organization (ISO) two-letter code for South Africa as well as the country’s level domain suffix.

Even the South African currency code is ZAR for Zuid-Afrikaanse Rand.

The country has been known as South Africa since 1910, firstly the Union of South Africa after the British acquired it from the Dutch, then the Republic of South Africa (RSA) in 1961.

In addition, the abbreviation ‘SA’ had been adopted as the code for the Territory of the Saar Basin in 1920 and was used until as late as 1935, so it would not have been practical to reassign it to South Africa after such a short amount of time.

It would later be used again for the Saar Protectorate between 1947 and 1956.

Later on, ‘SA’ was adopted as the international vehicle registration code for Saudi Arabia, before being replaced by ‘KSA’, short for ‘Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’, although it became the ISO country code in 1974.