Johan Fourie has captured the 1911 South African Census electronically and this allows us to have a look at population and literacy at the level of towns and compare it to modern 1996 and 2011 data.

1. THE SPATIAL
PERSISTENCE OF
SOUTH AFRICA
By Johan Fourie & Waldo Krugell
Presentation prepared for the ERSA
Economic History Workshop 10:
A country of migrants
Potchefstroom, 4-5 December 2013

2. Introduction
• Why study geographical economics in South Africa?
• It could be part of the bigger debates on the roots of development.
• SA has a unique history and spatial distribution of economic
activity.
• Today local authorities have some responsibility for development of
their areas.
• The local academic literature is made up of divergent
contributions from urban and regional planners,
geographers and economists.
• In this paper we are interested in the persistence of
towns and cities.
• We compare place-level data from 1911, 1996 and 2011.

3. Development has dimensions of density
and distance.
• The stylized facts show:
• Economic production is concentrated.
• Living standards diverge before converging.
• Agglomeration forces shape the spatial economy.
• People migrate to profit from proximity to density.
• As transport costs fall, specialisation and trade increases.
• Cities facilitate scale economies of all types
o Sharing,
o Matching,
o Learning
for urbanisation
or localisation
economies

4. Our data
• We have data at the level of cities and towns.
• From the 1911 census:
• Population numbers for whites, other and a total
• Numbers of the population that could read and write and those that
could only read, for whites, others and a total.
• We can match the 1911 towns to the 1996 magisterial
districts.
• We have 1996 data from Global Insight's Regional Economic
Explorer (REX) database.
• And population data from the 2011 census, matched to the 1996
boundaries (thanks to David Wilson).

5. The matching
• There are still some issues with the matching to keep in
mind.
• There are 199 matched places.
• But we have 155 more towns in the REX that are not matched to
places in the 1911 census.
• This because the 1996 magisterial districts are more
disaggregated.
• For example, the census has Zoutpansberg as one region, but by 1996
this big region is made up of a number of magisterial districts.
• It would be relatively easy to aggregate the 1996 magisterial district
data up to the 1911 census regions.
• Breaking down the 1911 census regions to the 1996 magisterial districts
would be much more complicated.

6. Population compared
1911
2011

7. The rank-size rule
• Using the population data one can estimate the rank-size
rule.
• The Rank-Size distribution of cities throughout the world follows a
law that states that the number of cities with a population larger
than S is approximately proportional to S-q (Gabaix, 1999).
• If q is equal to zero, all places have the same size.
• If q is equal to or close to 1 it is also known as “Zipf’s Law”.
1911
2011
ln(S) = 13.318 – 0.738 ln(N) ln(S) = 16.079 – 1.155 ln(N)
se=0.02
se=0.02
R2 = 0.879
R2 = 0.805

8. The rank-size rule
1911
2011

9. The rank size rule
• Thus, in 1911 South Africa's towns were too small and
even in size.
• They were likely to offer urbanisation economies rather
than localisation economies.
• Population growth, migration, industrialisation lead to an
increase in q as agglomerations (PTA, JHB, PE, DBN,
CTN, BFN) grew.
• This is similar to the result that Brakman et al. (1999)
found for the Netherlands over the years 1600, 1900 and
1990.

10. Was there cumulative causation?
Top 20 biggest growth in share
of the population
Inanda
Bloemfontein
Port Elizabeth
East London
Pretoria
Hlabisa
Pietermaritzburg
Mtunzini
Durban
Camperdown
Rustenburg
Uitenhage
Pinetown
Nqutu
Lower Umfolozi
George
Mmabatho
Umtata
Newcastle
Gordonia

11. Is there anything interesting in the literacy
data?
Top 20 places literacy rates
All places
Simonstown
Maximum
Mean
Std.
Deviation
Total read & write literacy
rate 1911
63.45 26.0166 16.11944
Read & write literacy
rate, males 1911
36.73 13.5130
8.52490
Read & write literacy
rate, females 1911
29.69 12.5036
7.78567
Read & write literacy
rate, Whites 1911
46.10 19.1985 14.57181
Read & write literacy
rate, Other 1911
23.41
6.8181
4.91797
63.45
Cape
Port Elizabeth
Bredasdorp
Caledon
Ladismith
Piquetberg
Mossel Bay
Riversdale
Swellendam
Pietermaritzburg
Robertson
Johannesburg
Stellenbosch
Laingsburg
Carnarvon
Paarl
Fraserburg
Durban
Sutherland
57.74
57.16
57.02
55.79
51.88
51.19
50.49
50.24
49.7
48.85
48.47
48.23
47.88
47.69
46.5
46.36
46.17
46.1
45.98

12. Literacy for the "Other" grouping
Top 20 places literacy for "Other"
Victoria East
Nqamakwe
Xalanga
Tsomo
Port Elizabeth
Butterworth
Thaba'Nechu
Cape
Kimberley
Tulbagh
Stellenbosch
Simonstown
Fort Beaufort
Stutterheim
Bredasdorp
Namaqualand
Peddie
Paarl
Caledon
Queenstown
23.41
22.67
21.32
20.91
19.98
18.62
18.36
18.34
18.23
17.45
17.36
17.34
17.34
17.32
16.34
15.12
15.1
15.05
14.94
14.92

13. Some correlations
Total read Other read
Total
& write
& write
Total
population in literacy
literacy
population
1911
rate 1911 rate 1911
1996
Total population in
1911
Total read & write
literacy rate 1911
Other read & write
literacy rate 1911
Total population
1996
HDI 1996
Gini coefficient
1996
Annual per capita
income in 1996
HDI 1996
Annual per
Gini
capita
coefficient income in
1996
1996
1
-0.129
1
0.034
.452**
1
.476**
-0.0982
0.081
1
.383**
.615**
.396**
.347**
1
-.245**
-0.060
-.298**
-.382**
-.359**
1
.485**
.503**
.252**
.381**
.896**
-.285**
1

14. The way forward
• We need to capture more of the 1911 census data.
• We need to improve the match with the 1996 district
council boundaries and extend it to 2011 municipal
boundaries.
• We need to have a closer look at the history literature to
see what questions we can answer.