rand

 

The South African rand, or simply the rand, (sign: R; code: ZAR) is the official currency of the Southern African Common Monetary Area: South Africa, Namibia (alongside the Namibian dollar), Lesotho (alongside the Lesotho loti) and Eswatini (alongside the Swazi lilangeni). It is subdivided into 100 cents (sign: "c") and the rand and cents are separated by a comma.

The South African rand is legal tender in the Common Monetary Area member states of Namibia, Lesotho and Eswatini, with these three countries also having their own national currency (the dollar, the loti and the lilangeni respectively) pegged with the rand at parity and still widely accepted as substitutes. The rand was also legal tender in Botswana until 1976, when the pula replaced the rand at par. 

 

 The rand takes its name from the Witwatersrand ("white waters' ridge" in English, rand being the Afrikaans word for 'ridge'), the ridge upon which Johannesburg is built and where most of South Africa's gold deposits were found. In English and Afrikaans the singular and plural form of the unit ("rand") is the same: one rand, ten rand, two million rand.