When apartheid ended in 1994, the South African government had to integrate the formerly independent and semi-independent Bantustans into the political structure of South Africa. To this end, it abolished the four former provinces of South Africa (Cape Province, Natal, Orange Free State, and Transvaal) and replaced them with nine fully integrated provinces. The new provinces are usually much smaller than the former provinces, which theoretically is in order to give local governments more resources to distribute over smaller areas.

The nine provinces are further sub-divided into 52 districts, six of which are metropolitan and 46 district municipalities. The 46 district municipalities are further subdivided into 231 local municipalities. The district municipalities also contain 20 district management areas (mostly game parks) which are directly governed by the district municipalities. The six metropolitan municipalities perform the functions of both district and local municipalities.The new provinces are:

Eastern Cape, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Limpopo, Northern Cape, North West, Western Cape

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( Map showing provinces (By color, pale pink for Northern Cape, turquoise for North West, purple for Gauteng, green for Limpopo, brown for Mpumalanga, pink for KwaZulu-Natal, yellow for Eastern Cape, pale green for Free State, and pale yellow for Western Cape) and districts (numbers) of South Africa )