The 1996 South Africa Census and the 1998 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) provide the first widely available, comprehensive and nationally representative demographic data since 1970, and permit the analysis of aspects of South African demography that have never been investigated before. This report provides a detailed account of the South African fertility decline from 1970 to the present, and provides the most robust estimates of current levels of fertility in South Africa yet published using the 1996 census data.