Unmapped News
South Africa’s numbers, in plain words. Every story is built on official figures we have checked, with its sources shown.
The latest figures Tap one to look it up for your town
Heat ·
The hottest ground in your city: every ward’s summer heat, measured from space
The story behind our film: how hot the ground reads on clear summer mornings in every ward, the gap between the hottest and coolest ward inside each big city, why buildings read hot and trees cool, two Johannesburg wards seen from space, the El Niño summer of 2016, and what heat means for your health.
Latest
Water · Film ·
Is your tap water safe? Mostly. The sewage is another story
Elections · Film ·
Nobody in charge: 81 of 115 finished councils hung, at 75% counted
Films
Watch the story in a few minutes
Short films, maps first. Each one has its full story here, with every number and its source.
Elections
3 stories
Elections · Film ·
2026 local election results: 138 of 212 councils hung, and what happened in your province
The full results of South Africa's 2026 local elections from the IEC's files: the national vote against 2021, every province, all eight metros, which councils have a majority and which are hung, and the record wards.
Elections · Film ·
Nobody in charge: 81 of 115 finished councils hung, at 75% counted
Water
2 stories
Water · Film ·
Is your tap water safe? Mostly. The sewage is another story
The story behind our film: the government’s own ratings of 1,003 drinking-water systems and 848 municipal sewage works, why the Western Cape does so much better than the Northern Cape, and what flows into the Vaal.
Air
1 story
Air · Film ·
How clean is your air? Nitrogen dioxide in every municipality, and its sources from space
The story behind our film: a model’s estimate of nitrogen dioxide for all 213 municipalities in 2025, where it is highest, why the Highveld stands out, its biggest sources seen from space, what it means for your health, and how far a model can be trusted.
Heat
1 story
Heat · Film ·
The hottest ground in your city: every ward’s summer heat, measured from space
The story behind our film: how hot the ground reads on clear summer mornings in every ward, the gap between the hottest and coolest ward inside each big city, why buildings read hot and trees cool, two Johannesburg wards seen from space, the El Niño summer of 2016, and what heat means for your health.
Electricity
2 stories
Electricity · Film ·
Same power, double the price: why your address sets your electricity bill
The story behind our film: why towns charge so differently for the same electricity, the monthly fees that hit small users hardest, and who went up most this year.
Check yours
The same numbers, for your town. Free.
- What does petrol cost in my town?
- What will my electricity bill be?
- What is the minimum wage for my job?
- Is the tap water safe where I live?
- How full are the dams?
- Which ward am I in?
- What is the rand worth?
- What interest may a lender charge?
- How clean is the air where I live?
- How hot does the ground get where I live?
- How is my municipality doing?
Coming up
- Weekly dam levelsMon 16 Nov expected
- Inflation for October 2026 (CPI)Wed 18 Nov
- Interest rate decisionThu 19 Nov
- Last day for the new councils’ first meetingsBy 22 November expected
- Crime statistics for July to September 2026Late November expected
How a story is made
- Every figure names its sourceOfficial figures come from Gazettes, regulators’ decisions and department reports, each checked against the page it is printed on. Figures measured from space or worked out by a weather model say so.
- Code does the sumsEvery number in a story is worked out from the data. None is typed in.
- A person approves itAI helps draft the words and voices the films. A person reads and checks every story first.
- Kept as publishedA story keeps the data it was written from. A fix is a dated correction at the top.
Unmapped News is the news side of Unmapped Dataworks, an independent Cape Town business that collects South Africa’s official numbers, each traced to its source. About us · Our standards · Corrections · RSS