Asia dwarfs South Africa: about 44,580,000 km² km² against 1,221,609 km² km². At true size Asia is about 36.5× larger — the whole of South Africa fits into Asia roughly 36 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 36× into Asia.