Abstract. Global and regional geomagnetic field models give the components of the geomagnetic field as functions of position and epoch; most utilise a polynomial or Fourier series to map the input variables to the geomagnetic field values. The only temporal variation generally catered for in these models is the long term secular variation. However, there is an increasing need amongst certain users for models able to provide shorter term temporal variations, such as the geomagnetic daily variation. In this study, for the first time, artificial neural networks (ANNs) are utilised to develop a geomagnetic daily variation model. The model developed is for the southern African region; however, the method used could be applied to any other region or even globally. Besides local time and latitude, input variables considered in the daily variation model are season, sunspot number, and degree of geomagnetic activity. The ANN modelling of the geomagnetic daily variation is found to give results very similar to those obtained by the synthesis of harmonic coefficients which have been computed by the more traditional harmonic analysis of the daily variation.Key words. Geomagnetism and paleomagnetism (time variations; diurnal to secular) · Ionosphere (modelling and forecasting)