The Rufous Sparrow, Southern Rufous Sparrow or in South Africa the Great Sparrow, Passer motitensis, is found in Africa in dry, wooded savannah and towns.

This is a 15"?16 cm long sparrow superficially like a large House Sparrow. It has a grey crown and rear neck and rufous upperparts.

The taxonomy of this species is confused. The forms insularis and rufocinctus are often split as the Socotra Sparrow and Kenya Rufous Sparrow respectively, but are also lumped into P. motitensis following Dowsett and Forbes-Watson (1993).

Some authorities also split the East African form shelleyi as Shelley's Rufous Sparrow and the Sudanese cordofanicus as Kordofan Rufous Sparrow.