Research cartographer · South Africa
Markets,
mapped.
GeoKeys explains the market, business and demographic forces shaping South Africa, one map at a time. Where stores cluster, where malls rise, which roads run dry, who gets left at the edge, and even where our sports stars grow up.
8,176 stores
Six national chains, every store binned to a hexagon. Density follows people, and money.
Source · Store locators, Sep 2026
▶ 641Which province produces the most PSL players?
TikTok · 10 Oct 2026
▶ 8.7kWhich SA town produces the most footballers?
TikTok · 06 Oct 2026
▶ 604The Municipal Files: eThekwini
TikTok · 04 Oct 2026
▶ 5kTop 5 grocery deserts in South Africa
TikTok · 04 Oct 2026
▶ 13kTop 5 brands by retail footprint
TikTok · 03 Sept 2026
▶ 2.3kCash vs digital: where Alex’s ATMs really are
TikTok · 18 Aug 2026
▶ 17kCoega works. SA’s other 11 SEZs don’t.
TikTok · 16 Aug 2026
▶ 37kTop 5 longest petrol-desert roads
TikTok · 13 Aug 2026
▶ 21kTop 5 worst places to live as a commuter
TikTok · 10 Aug 2026
▶ 11k100,000+ km of SA road officially doesn’t exist
TikTok · 02 Aug 2026
▶ 686The Municipal Files: Makhado
TikTok · 27 Jun 2026
▶ 3.6k69% of our justice laws predate democracy
TikTok · 18 Jun 2026
03 · Read
Long reads.
Written analysis for the ideas that need nuance: township economies, housing policy, retail demand and the spatial tools behind them.
01LinkedIn · Jul 2025 · 8 min read
Trust, Cash, and Community: Decoding the Township Economy’s Success Formula
An economic ecosystem where relationships matter more than credit scores.
02LinkedIn · Feb 2025 · 12 min read
Cape Town’s Housing Amendment: Good Intentions, Neo-Apartheid Outcomes
How well-meant housing policy can still harden the city’s spatial divides.
03LinkedIn · Jan 2025 · 10 min read
Uncovering Hidden Demand: Township Retail Potential
What location intelligence reveals about the true scale of township consumer demand.
04LinkedIn · Dec 2024 · 9 min read
South Africa’s Restaurant Market: Resilience and Innovation
From quick-service dominance to local brands, and how operators use spatial analytics.
05LinkedIn · Nov 2024 · 7 min read
How Location Intelligence is Powering Retail’s Next Big Shift
The winning retailers map movement and predict demand, not just track sales.
06LinkedIn · Oct 2024 · 11 min read
The Hex Factor: Uber’s H3 Grid System and AWS
Why hexagons beat everything else for spatial aggregation and multi-resolution analysis.
04 · Work with us
Commission a map.
Book a talk.
Phelelani Mkhize runs GeoKeys. Bring a market question, a dataset you can’t make sense of, or a room that needs to see a pattern clearly.
- 01
Commissioned maps & research
Store networks, catchments, market sizing and demographic shifts, researched and turned into maps a boardroom can read in one look.
- 02
Keynotes & panels
Talks on place, pattern and the economy: why where things happen explains why they happen. Conferences, summits and all-hands.
- 03
Workshops
Half or full-day sessions that teach non-technical teams to ask location questions and read spatial data with confidence.
- 04
Brand & editorial partnerships
Data-led stories built with brands, media and researchers, from a single explainer to a recurring series.