Africa dwarfs South Africa: about 30,370,000 km² km² against 1,221,609 km² km². At true size Africa is about 24.9× larger — the whole of South Africa fits into Africa roughly 24 times.
The old Mercator map treated both about equally (1× vs 1.3× inflation), so at least their relative sizes were preserved — even if both were drawn at the wrong absolute scale.
South Africa fits 24× into Africa.