IntroductionThis publication is a guide to the South African national accounts. It reviews the major concepts and definitions, describes the data sources and methods used and outlines the main features of the revised System of National Accounts. Revised annual national accounts data are available for calendar years from 1946 to 1998 and on a quarterly basis from 1960 onwards.Comprehensive revisions became necessary, mainlybecause a new international System of National Accounts 1993 (1993 SNA) was published in 1993. - to capture the changes in relative prices and in the structure of the economy it became necessary to revise the constant 1990 price series to a new base year.to benchmark estimates at nominal values, incorporating the most recent census results, including the 1996 Population Census and various industry censuses.to implement changes on account of revised public-sector data, more up-to-date information about the informal sector’s contribution to the economy and minor adjustments to comply with the overall consistency requirements of the accounts.The sources of information and methods used in compiling the national accounts for South Africa were described in the Supplement to the Quarterly Bulletin, June 1991. That information has now been updated and includes, inter alia, the way in which the South African System of National Accounts (SASNA) has incorporated the 1993 SNA guidelines. Section 2 of this paper briefly describes the conceptual framework of the South African System of National Accounts, followed in Section 3 by an outline of the structure of the accounts. Section 4 sets out the principal sources of data and methods of calculation. Section 5 gives a theoretical description of the integrated economic accounts as recommended by the 1993 SNA and an example of South Africa’s integrated economic accounts. In addition, Sections 6 and 7 outline the accounting framework of the 1993 SNA and briefly summarise the main features of the 1993 SNA, while Section 8 contains some concluding remarks. ​