13 2015 in South Africa

The 21st Annual South African Music Awards were announced during a gala event at Sun City's Super Bowl arena in the North West province on Sunday night, 19 April 2015. It was branded as #SAMAXXI, where XXI represents the Roman numerals for 21.

The Cape Town water crisis in South Africa was a period of severe water shortage in the Western Cape region, most notably affecting the City of Cape Town. While dam water levels had been declining since 2015, the Cape Town water crisis peaked during mid-2017 to mid-2018 when water levels hovered between 15 and 30 percent of total dam capacity. In late 2017, there were first mentions of plans for "Day Zero", a shorthand reference for the day when the water level of the major dams supplying the City fell below 13.5 percent. "Day Zero" would herald the start of Level 7 water restrictions, when municipal water supplies would largely be switched off and residents would have to queue for their daily ration of water, making the City of Cape Town the first major city in the world to potentially run out of water. The water crisis occurred at the same time as the still ongoing Eastern Cape drought located in a separate region nearby.

#FeesMustFall was a student-led protest movement that began in mid-October 2015 in South Africa. The goals of the movement were to stop increases in student fees as well as to increase government funding of universities. The movements were started and led by the SRC leader of the University of Witwatersrand of 2015, Shaeera Kalla. On 2 October Kalla attended her last council meeting as SRC president, she is accompanied by Nompendulo as an observer heading towards being the incoming SRC President of 2016. Protests started at the University of Witwatersrand and spread to the University of Cape Town and Rhodes University before rapidly spreading to other universities across the country.

The 2015 edition of the MTV Africa Music Awards took place on 18 July 2015, at the Durban International Convention Centre. The awards aired live across Africa on MTV Base, MTV and BET and transmitted worldwide on partner stations and content platforms including BET International. The event was sponsored by KwaZulu-Natal in association with Absolut Vodka and in partnership with The City of Durban and was hosted by Anthony Anderson.

At former South African President Jacob Zuma's Nkandla compound and private residence in South Africa, a swimming pool officially deemed as having a dual-purpose as a "firepool" was constructed. It was claimed that the pool was built as a security feature and security upgrade, as a source of water for firefighting. A controversy surrounded the construction of the pool.

The private home of former South African President Jacob Zuma, situated about 24 km (15 mi) south of the rural town of Nkandla in KwaZulu-Natal, commonly referred to as the Nkandla homestead has been the subject of considerable controversy. The use of public funds to make improvements to the compound, which were said to be for security reasons, which cost over R246 million led to significant media coverage and political opposition. A report of the Public Protector found that Zuma unduly benefited from these improvements and the Constitutional Court subsequently found that Zuma and the National Assembly failed to uphold the country's constitution after he failed to comply with the Public Protector's report on the matter. Zuma finally apologised for using public money to fund his private residence and in April 2016 he was asked to resign by prominent public figures, including anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada, due to the scandal. The controversy is sometimes referred to as Nkandlagate.

Rhodes Must Fall was a protest movement that began on 9 March 2015, originally directed against a statue at the University of Cape Town (UCT) that commemorates Cecil Rhodes. The campaign for the statue's removal received global attention and led to a wider movement to "decolonise" education across South Africa. On 9 April 2015, following a UCT Council vote the previous night, the statue was removed.

The Transnet Freight Rail Class 22E of 2015 is a South African electric locomotive.

The Transnet Freight Rail Class 23E of 2017 is a South African electric locomotive.

The Transnet Freight Rail Class 44-000 of 2015 is a South African diesel-electric locomotive.

The Transnet Freight Rail Class 45-000 of 2015 is a South African diesel-electric locomotive.

The Van Breda murders were the killing of three family members and serious injuring of another on 27 January 2015 at a golf estate in Stellenbosch, South Africa. After a year and a half of investigations by the South African Police Service, the family's youngest son, Henri Christo Van Breda, surrendered to police in June 2016 and was released on bail the next day. Henri was found guilty of murder, attempted murder, and obstruction of justice on 21 May 2018 by the Western Cape High Court. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for each of the three murders; fifteen years for attempted murder; and twelve months for obstruction. The sentences are to run concurrently.

The 2015 Cape wildfires were a series of wildfires that burned across the Western Cape from February to April 2015. Major fires burned across the Cape Peninsula starting on 1 March in Muizenberg and burning until 9 March, when firefighters extinguished it. The fire resulted in 1 death, 56 injuries, over 6,900 hectares of burnt land, and 13 damaged properties, of which 3 were destroyed. The cause of the fire was later determined to be arson. There were also major fires near Wellington and Porteville starting in February, which claimed the lives of 3 firefighters and a fire in Stellenbosch that caused the evacuation of the University of Stellenbosch and burned over 2,900 hectares of land.