In African continent, South Africa has nearly 50% of the railway networks. This is due to:

Concentration of mining activities

Africa continent, despite being the second largest, has only 40,000 km of railways with South Africa alone accounting for 18,000 km due to the concentration of gold, diamond and copper mining activities. The important routes of the continent are: (i) the Benguela Railway through Angola to Katanga-Zambia Copper Belt; (ii) the Tanzania Railway from the Zambian Copper Belt to Dar-es-Salaam on the coast; (iii) the Railway through Botswana and Zimbabwe linking the landlocked states to the South African network; and (iv) the Blue Train from Cape Town to Pretoria in the Republic of South Africa. Elsewhere, as in Algeria, Senegal, Nigeria, Kenya and Ethiopia, railway lines connect port cities to interior centres but do not form a good network with other countries.