Southern Africa, including South Africa, Namibia, and Mozambique, has a highly diverse fauna of cartilaginous fishes (Class Chondrichthyes), including sharks, rays or ‘flat sharks’, and chimaeras or ‘silver sharks’. All orders, most families, and approximately 210 species of cartilaginous fishes occur in the area, of which 54 are endemics. The paper gives an overview of known diversity of cartilaginous fishes in the area and discusses their classification, distribution, habitats and ecomorphotypes. It also gives a history of chondrichthyan systematics in southern Africa from Linnaeus to the present, analyses the systematic status of the fauna, and discusses future directions for research.