Nelson Mandela was released from hospital on Saturday after recovering from pneumonia.

The former president of South Africa spent more than a week in hospital raising concerns all over the world.

"(He) has been discharged from hospital today, 6 April, following a sustained and gradual improvement in his general condition," the South African presidency said in a statement on Saturday.

It was the third health scare in four months for the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who became South Africa's first black president in 1994 and became a global symbol of tolerance and the struggle for equality.

He was in hospital briefly in early March for a check-up and was hospitalised in December for nearly three weeks with a lung infection and after surgery to remove gallstones.

Mandela,94, stepped down as president in 1999 and has not been politically active for a decade. But he is still revered at home and abroad for leading the long campaign against apartheid and then championing racial reconciliation while in office.

Mandela has a history of lung problems dating from when he contracted tuberculosis as a political prisoner. He spent 27 years on Robben Island and in other jails for his attempts to overthrow the white-minority government.