South African rand South African rand The rand (sign: R; code: ZAR) is the currency of South Africa. The Rand is subdivided into 100 cents (sign: "c"). The ISO 4217 code is ZAR, from Dutch "Zuid-Afrikaanse Rand" (South African Rand). The Rand is legal tender in the Common Monetary Area between South Africa, Swaziland (Eswatini), Lesotho, and Namibia, although the last three countries do have their own currencies pegged at par with rand. Before 1976, the rand was legal tender in Botswana. The Rand takes its name from the WitwatersRand ("white waters' ridge" in English), the ridge upon which Johannesburg is built and
The Rand Daily Mail black newspaper "The Sowetan" described "The Rand Daily Mail" as the first white newspaper to regard blacks as human beings. Yet for most of the apartheid period (1948–1990) the paper suffered from poor management, government infiltration, and state censorship. The management often tried to replace more liberal editors with conservative ones. After the closure of "The Rand Daily Mail", some of its journalists (like Anton Harber and Irwin Manoim) pooled their severance pay to start the "Weekly Mail" (now "Mail & Guardian"), which carried on the anti-apartheid stance of its predecessor. Times Media Group held the rights to "The Rand