South African Canadians are
Canadians
Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...
of
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
n descent. Most South African Canadians are
White South African
White South Africans are South Africans of European descent. In linguistic, cultural, and historical terms, they are generally divided into the Afrikaans-speaking descendants of the Dutch East India Company's original colonists, known as Afr ...
s, mostly of
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies.
* British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...
and
Afrikaner
Afrikaners () are a Southern African ethnic group descended from predominantly Dutch settlers who first arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652.Entry: Cape Colony. ''Encyclopædia Britannica Volume 4 Part 2: Brain to Casting''. Encyclopæd ...
ancestry. According to the
2021 Canada census
The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, which is sli ...
there were 51,590 South African-born immigrants in Canada. It includes those who hold or have ever held permanent resident status in Canada, including
naturalized citizens. 12,270 people considered Afrikaans their mother tongue.
Demographics
South African-born population in Canada by year:
South African-born immigrants by province and territory as recorded in the 2021 Canada Census:
Notable South African Canadians
*
Luca Bellisomo
Luca Bellisomo (born 25 October 1986) is a South African soccer player who last played for Finnish Veikkausliiga club IFK Mariehamn.
Career
Youth and College
Bellisomo was born in South Africa, and moved with his family to the Greater Vancou ...
, soccer player
*
Ngaire Blankenberg, former director of the
National Museum of African Art
The National Museum of African Art is the Smithsonian Institution's African art museum, located on the National Mall of the Washington, D.C., United States capital. Its collections include 9,000 works of traditional and contemporary African ar ...
*
Neill Blomkamp
Neill Blomkamp (; born 17 September 1979) is a South African and Canadian film director and screenwriter. He is known as the co-writer and director of the science fiction action film ''District 9'' (2009), for which he was nominated for the Aca ...
, film director, film producer, screenwriter, and animator
*
Mike Botha, master diamond cutter
*
Kim Brunhuber, journalist
*
Arlene Dickinson
Arlene Dickinson (born October 8, 1956) is a South African and Canadian businesswoman, investor, author, and television personality. She is the general partner of District Ventures Capital and CEO of Venturepark. Dickinson joined the cast of the ...
, businesswoman
*
Robin Esrock, travel writer
*
Kevin Harmse, soccer player
*
Mpho Koaho
Mpho Koaho () (born 22 April 1979) is a Canadian actor. He portrayed Anthony on the TNT science fiction series ''Falling Skies'' (2011–2015) and was also a series regular on the Teletoon action adventure '' MetaJets'' (2011) and the BBC Amer ...
, actor
*
Shannon Kook
Shannon Xiao Lóng Kook-Chun (born 9 February 1987) is a South African actor based in Canada. He is known for his roles as Zane Park on the television series '' Degrassi: The Next Generation'' (2010–11), Jordan Green on '' The 100'' (2018†...
, actor
*
Jay Manuel, director creative and make-up artist
*
Kandyse McClure
Candice McClure (born 22 March 1980), known professionally as Kandyse McClure, is a Canadian actress. She gained prominence through her roles in the Fox Family Channel, Fox Family series ''Higher Ground (TV series), Higher Ground'' (2000), the N ...
, actress
*
Derek Muller
Derek Alexander Muller (born 9 November 1982) is a science communicator and media personality, best known for his YouTube channel Veritasium, which has over 17.8 million subscribers and 3.3 billion views as of April 2025. He currently lives in ...
, science communicator, film-maker and television personality, also known by
YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
channel ''Veritasium''
*
Joyce Murray
Joyce Catherine Murray (born July 11, 1954) is a Canadian politician who represented the riding of Vancouver Quadra in the House of Commons as a member of the Liberal Party from 2008 until 2025. She was re-elected in the 41st, 42nd, 43rd, ...
, politician
*
Elon Musk
Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a businessman. He is known for his leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, X (formerly Twitter), and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk has been considered the wealthiest person in th ...
, business magnate, investor, engineer and inventor. Founder of
SpaceX
Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an America, American space technology company headquartered at the SpaceX Starbase, Starbase development site in Starbase, Texas. Since its founding in 2002, the compa ...
, co-founder of
PayPal
PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support E-commerce payment system, online money transfers; it serves as an electronic alter ...
and
Tesla, Inc.
Tesla, Inc. ( or ) is an American multinational automotive and clean energy company. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, it designs, manufactures and sells battery electric vehicles (BEVs), stationary battery energy storage devices from h ...
*
Steve Nash
Stephen John Nash (born 7 February 1974) is a Canadian professional basketball coach and former player who most recently served as head coach of the Brooklyn Nets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played 18 seasons in the NBA, ...
, basketball player
*
Lisa de Nikolits, writer
*
Johannes Sauer, sport shooter
*
Tony Dean Smith, film and television director, screenwriter, and editor
*
D. T. H. van der Merwe, rugby union player
*
Murad Velshi, former politician in Ontario
See also
*
South African diaspora
The South African diaspora consists of South African emigrants and their descendants living outside South Africa. The largest concentrations of South African emigrants are to be found in the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States and the U ...
*
Dutch Canadians
Dutch Canadians () are Canadians with full or partial Dutch ancestry. According to the Canada 2006 Census, there were 1,035,965 Canadians of Dutch descent, including those of full or partial ancestry. This increased to 1,111,655 or about 4.2% ...
*
Canadian Immigrant population by country of birth
*
Canada–South Africa relations
References
{{South African diaspora