South African Panorama

The South African Panorama was a South African monthly magazine.

Also published in Afrikaans as Suid-Afrikaanse Panorama. The publication is sometimes referred to as the South African Panorama Magazine or simply as Panorama. and was later known as African Panorama.

It was a general promotional publication about South Africa, compiled and issued by the South African Information Service, Department of Information from 1956-1991. The magazine was a glossy publication in full colour, and often contained articles on the arts.

Originally published monthly by the Department of Information this prestigious illustrated glossy periodical concentrated on communicating a modern and progressive view of South Africa to its readership. It covered developments in all areas portraying people, places, and all aspects of contemporary South African life and heritage. Distributed at a heavily subsidised cost, not only within South Africa but externally through embassies and missions overseas & even to individuals on application for a year's free subscription. The interest of this publication looking back is now to see how much was done to maintain the image of South Africa as the African equivalent of a modern European country - as it then saw itself. The message was one of continuity of development in the European tradition, and as with other eurocentric publications this was effectively terminated with the rise to power of the present government. From 1994 it was rebranded as "African Panorama" and published privately without a government subsidy, finally dying in 1998.