List of South African provinces by Human Development Index

Map of the South African provinces by Human Development Index in 2017.
Legend:

  0.700 – 0.799 (high)

  0.600 – 0.699 (medium)

This is a list of the provinces of South Africa by Human Development Index as of 2021.

Rank	Province	HDI (2021)
High human development
1	Western Cape	0.751
2	Gauteng	0.736
3	Limpopo	0.714
–	South Africa (average)	0.713
4	Free State	0.712
5	KwaZulu-Natal	0.710
6	Northern Cape	0.701
Medium human development
7	Mpumalanga	0.678
8	North West	0.676
9	Eastern Cape	0.675

Historical data

Province	1990	1995	2000	2005	2010	2015	2020
Western Cape	0.711	0.745	0.705	0.689	0.717	0.753	0.766
Gauteng	0.696	0.729	0.692	0.681	0.714	0.741	0.750
Free State	0.648	0.677	0.646	0.637	0.672	0.714	0.726
Limpopo	0.598	0.623	0.604	0.612	0.663	0.715	0.727
KwaZulu-Natal	0.589	0.615	0.594	0.604	0.656	0.710	0.724
Northern Cape	0.625	0.654	0.624	0.618	0.655	0.702	0.715
Mpumalanga	0.609	0.635	0.610	0.608	0.649	0.683	0.692
North West	0.626	0.654	0.624	0.615	0.648	0.681	0.690
Eastern Cape	0.581	0.606	0.583	0.586	0.631	0.677	0.688
South Africa	0.632	0.661	0.633	0.632	0.675	0.716	0.727