TechnicalGIS

Aerial and satellite imagery data for South Africa

Partial open imagery Open orthophotos or high-resolution imagery exist, but only for limited areas such as regions or cities.

CD: NGI distributes a national 0.5 m colour orthophoto mosaic and provincial 0.25 m mosaics through its Geospatial Portal and public WMS, but no open reuse licence is stated; openly licensed imagery is limited to local drone captures on OpenAerialMap.

Best open GSD
0.01 m
Latest capture
2025
Datasets
2 · 1 open · 2 free
Region
Africa
Last reviewed

Datasets 2

Free is not the same as open. Cost is what you pay to get the data; the licence says what you may do with it. How cost and licence are defined

  • OpenAerialMap imagery covering South Africa (opens in a new tab)

    OpenAerialMap (Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team); individual image contributors

    Cost Free Licence Open
    • Orthophoto
    • Satellite imagery
    GSD
    0.01 m
    Bands
    RGB
    Acquired
    2023–2025
    Coverage
    11 images at 1 m GSD or finer with footprints centred in South Africa, as indexed on 27 October 2026; 11 under CC BY or CC BY-SA (excluding images sourced from commercial satellite operators) (principally GPS Land, LandPlan, WebODM). Coverage is local (individual drone or satellite scenes), not national.
    Licence
    Per image — CC BY 4.0: 11 images
    Access
    Direct download
    Formats
    GeoTIFF (COG), TMS, WMTS
    Link check
    Link OK (HTTP 200),

  • CD: NGI national 0.5 m and provincial 0.25 m colour orthophoto mosaics (opens in a new tab)

    Chief Directorate: National Geo-spatial Information (CD: NGI)

    Cost Free Licence Not open
    • Orthophoto
    • Historical aerial
    GSD
    0.25 m
    Bands
    RGB
    Acquired
    2016–2023
    Coverage
    National 0.5 m GSD mosaic of the latest imagery; 0.25 m mosaics for Northern Cape and Free State (2017), Limpopo (2018), Western Cape (2020–2022), North West (2020–2021), Free State (2023) and others; aerial photography library for research
    Licence
    CD: NGI Geospatial Portal terms; no open reuse licence stated
    Access
    Portal
    Formats
    GeoTIFF, WMS
    Link check
    Link OK (HTTP 200),

Elsewhere in Africa