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South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the
South Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the "Old World" of Africa, Europe a ...
and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countries of
Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...
, Botswana, and Zimbabwe; and to the east and northeast by Mozambique and Eswatini. It also completely
enclaves An enclave is a territory (or a small territory apart of a larger one) that is entirely surrounded by the territory of one other state or entity. Enclaves may also exist within territorial waters. ''Enclave'' is sometimes used improperly to deno ...
the country Lesotho. It is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World, and the second-most populous country located entirely south of the equator, after Tanzania. South Africa is a biodiversity hotspot, with unique biomes, plant and animal life. With over 60 million people, the country is the world's 24th-most populous nation and covers an area of . South Africa has three capital cities, with the executive, judicial and legislative branches of government based in Pretoria, Bloemfontein, and Cape Town respectively. The largest city is
Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a Megacity#List of megacities, megacity, and is List of urban areas by p ...
. About 80% of the population are
Black South Africans Racial groups in South Africa have a variety of origins. The racial categories introduced by Apartheid remain ingrained in South African society with South Africans and the South African government continuing to classify themselves, and each o ...
. The remaining population consists of Africa's largest communities of European ( White South Africans), Asian (
Indian South Africans Indian South Africans are South Africans who descend from indentured labourers and free migrants who arrived from British India during the late 1800s and early 1900s. The majority live in and around the city of Durban, making it one of the ...
and Chinese South Africans), and multiracial ( Coloured South Africans) ancestry. South Africa is a multiethnic society encompassing a wide variety of cultures, languages, and religions. Its pluralistic makeup is reflected in the constitution's recognition of 11 official languages, the fourth-highest number in the world. According to the 2011 census, the two most spoken first languages are Zulu (22.7%) and Xhosa (16.0%). The two next ones are of European origin: Afrikaans (13.5%) developed from Dutch and serves as the first language of most Coloured and White South Africans;
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...
(9.6%) reflects the legacy of British colonialism and is commonly used in public and commercial life. The country is one of the few in Africa never to have had a coup d'état, and regular elections have been held for almost a century. However, the vast majority of Black South Africans were not enfranchised until 1994. During the 20th century, the black majority sought to claim more rights from the dominant white minority, which played a large role in the country's recent history and politics. The National Party imposed apartheid in 1948, institutionalising previous racial segregation. After a long and sometimes violent struggle by the African National Congress and other anti-apartheid activists both inside and outside the country, the repeal of discriminatory laws began in the mid-1980s. Since 1994, all ethnic and linguistic groups have held political representation in the country's liberal democracy, which comprises a parliamentary republic and
nine provinces The term Nine Provinces or Nine Regions (), is used in ancient Chinese histories to refer to territorial divisions or islands during the Xia and Shang dynasties and has now come to symbolically represent China. "Province" is the word used to ...
. South Africa is often referred to as the " rainbow nation" to describe the country's multicultural diversity, especially in the wake of apartheid. South Africa is a middle power in international affairs; it maintains significant regional influence and is a member of both the Commonwealth of Nations and the G20. It is a developing country, ranking 109th on the Human Development Index, the 2nd highest in Africa. It has been classified by the World Bank as a
newly industrialised country The category of newly industrialized country (NIC), newly industrialized economy (NIE) or middle income country is a socioeconomic classification applied to several countries around the world by political scientists and economists. They represent ...
and has the third-largest economy in Africa and the most industrialized, technologically advanced economy in Africa overall as well as the 39th-largest in the world. South Africa has the most UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Africa. Since the end of apartheid, government accountability and quality of life have substantially improved. However, crime, poverty and inequality remain widespread, with about two-fifths of the total population being unemployed , while some three-fifths of the population lived under the poverty line in 2014 and a quarter under $2.15 a day.


Etymology

The name "South Africa" is derived from the country's geographic location at the southern tip of Africa. Upon formation, the country was named the Union of South Africa in English and in Dutch, reflecting its origin from the unification of four formerly separate British colonies. Since 1961, the long formal name in English has been the "Republic of South Africa" and in Afrikaans. Since 1994, the country has had an official name in each of its 11 official languages. Mzansi, derived from the Xhosa noun meaning "south", is a colloquial name for South Africa, while some
Pan-Africanist Pan-Africanism is a worldwide movement that aims to encourage and strengthen bonds of solidarity between all Indigenous and diaspora peoples of African ancestry. Based on a common goal dating back to the Atlantic slave trade, the movement exte ...
political parties prefer the term "
Azania Azania ( grc, Ἀζανία) is a name that has been applied to various parts of southeastern tropical Africa. In the Roman period and perhaps earlier, the toponym referred to a portion of the Southeast Africa coast extending from northern Kenya ...
".


History


Prehistoric archaeology

South Africa contains some of the oldest archaeological and human-fossil sites in the world. Archaeologists have recovered extensive fossil remains from a series of caves in Gauteng Province. The area, a
UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international coope ...
World Heritage Site, has been branded "the Cradle of Humankind". The sites include Sterkfontein, one of the richest sites for hominin fossils in the world, as well as Swartkrans,
Gondolin Cave Gondolin Cave is a fossiliferous dolomitic paleocave system in the Northwest Province, South Africa. The paleocave formed in the Eccles Formation dolomites ( Malmani Subgroup, Chuniespoort Group carbonate-banded iron formation marine platform). ...
, Kromdraai,
Cooper's Cave Cooper's Cave is a series of fossil-bearing breccia filled cavities. The cave is located almost exactly between the well known South African hominid-bearing sites of Sterkfontein and Kromdraai and about northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa and ...
and Malapa. Raymond Dart identified the first hominin fossil discovered in Africa, the Taung Child (found near Taung) in 1924. Other hominin remains have come from the sites of Makapansgat in Limpopo Province; Cornelia and Florisbad in Free State Province; Border Cave in KwaZulu-Natal Province; Klasies River Caves in Eastern Cape Province; and Pinnacle Point,
Elandsfontein Elandsfontein may refer to: * Elandsfontein, an archaeological site near Hopefield, South Africa * Elandsfontein, a farm homestead that is now a suburb of Alberton, South Africa {{disambiguation ...
and Die Kelders Cave in Western Cape Province. These finds suggest that various hominid species existed in South Africa from about three million years ago, starting with '' Australopithecus africanus,'' followed by '' Australopithecus sediba'', '' Homo ergaster'', '' Homo erectus'', '' Homo rhodesiensis'', ''
Homo helmei The Florisbad Skull is an important human fossil of the early Middle Stone Age, representing either late ''Homo heidelbergensis'' or early ''Homo sapiens''. It was discovered in 1932 by T. F. Dreyer at the Florisbad site, Free State Province, ...
'', '' Homo naledi'' and modern humans (''Homo sapiens''). Modern humans have inhabited Southern Africa for at least 170,000 years. Various researchers have located
pebble tools A pebble is a clast of rock with a particle size of based on the Udden-Wentworth scale of sedimentology. Pebbles are generally considered larger than granules ( in diameter) and smaller than cobbles ( in diameter). A rock made predominant ...
within the Vaal River valley.


Bantu expansion

Settlements of Bantu-speaking peoples, who were iron-using agriculturists and herdsmen, were present south of the Limpopo River (now the northern border with Botswana and Zimbabwe) by the 4th or 5th century CE. They displaced, conquered, and absorbed the original Khoisan, Khoikhoi and San peoples. The Bantu slowly moved south. The earliest ironworks in modern-day KwaZulu-Natal Province are believed to date from around 1050. The southernmost group was the Xhosa people, whose language incorporates certain linguistic traits from the earlier Khoisan people. The Xhosa reached the
Great Fish River The Great Fish River (called ''great'' to distinguish it from the Namibian Fish River) ( af, Groot-Visrivier) is a river running through the South African province of the Eastern Cape. The coastal area between Port Elizabeth and the Fish ...
, in today's Eastern Cape Province. As they migrated, these larger Iron Age populations displaced or assimilated earlier peoples. In Mpumalanga Province, several stone circles have been found along with a stone arrangement that has been named Adam's Calendar, and the ruins are thought to be created by the Bakone, a Northern Sotho people.


Portuguese exploration

In 1487, the Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias led the first European voyage to land in southern Africa. On 4 December, he landed at Walfisch Bay (now known as Walvis Bay in present-day Namibia). This was south of the furthest point reached in 1485 by his predecessor, the Portuguese navigator
Diogo Cão Diogo Cão (; -1486), anglicised as Diogo Cam and also known as Diego Cam, was a Portuguese explorer and one of the most notable navigators of the Age of Discovery. He made two voyages sailing along the west coast of Africa in the 1480s, explori ...
(
Cape Cross Cape Cross (Afrikaans: ''Kaap Kruis''; German: ''Kreuzkap''; Portuguese: ''Cabo da Cruz'') is a headland in the South Atlantic in Skeleton Coast, western Namibia. History In 1484, Portuguese navigator and explorer Diogo Cão was ordered by ...
, north of the bay). Dias continued down the western coast of southern Africa. After 8 January 1488, prevented by storms from proceeding along the coast, he sailed out of sight of land and passed the southernmost point of Africa without seeing it. He reached as far up the eastern coast of Africa as, what he called, , probably the present-day Groot River, in May 1488. On his return he saw the cape, which he named ('Cape of Storms'). King John II renamed the point , or Cape of Good Hope, as it led to the riches of the East Indies. Dias' feat of navigation was immortalised in Luís de Camões' 1572 epic poem '' Os Lusíadas''.


Dutch colonisation

By the early 17th century, Portugal's maritime power was starting to decline, and English and Dutch merchants competed to oust Portugal from its lucrative monopoly on the spice trade. Representatives of the British East India Company sporadically called at the cape in search of provisions as early as 1601 but later came to favour
Ascension Island Ascension Island is an isolated volcanic island, 7°56′ south of the Equator in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is about from the coast of Africa and from the coast of South America. It is governed as part of the British Overseas Territory of ...
and Saint Helena as alternative ports of refuge. Dutch interest was aroused after 1647, when two employees of the Dutch East India Company were shipwrecked at the cape for several months. The sailors were able to survive by obtaining fresh water and meat from the natives. They also sowed vegetables in the fertile soil. Upon their return to Holland, they reported favourably on the cape's potential as a "warehouse and garden" for provisions to stock passing ships for long voyages. In 1652, a century and a half after the discovery of the cape sea route, Jan van Riebeeck established a station at the Cape of Good Hope, at what would become Cape Town, on behalf of the Dutch East India Company. In time, the cape became home to a large population of , also known as (), former company employees who stayed in Dutch territories overseas after serving their contracts. Dutch traders also brought thousands of enslaved people to the fledgling colony from Indonesia, Madagascar, and parts of eastern Africa. Some of the earliest mixed race communities in the country were formed between , enslaved people, and indigenous peoples. This led to the development of a new ethnic group, the Cape Coloureds, most of whom adopted the Dutch language and Christian faith. The eastward expansion of Dutch colonists ushered in a series of wars with the southwesterly migrating Xhosa tribe, known as the
Xhosa Wars The Xhosa Wars (also known as the Cape Frontier Wars or the Kaffir Wars) were a series of nine wars (from 1779 to 1879) between the Xhosa Kingdom and the British Empire as well as Trekboers in what is now the Eastern Cape in South Africa. T ...
, as both sides competed for the pastureland near the Great Fish River, which the colonists desired for grazing cattle. ''Vrijburgers'' who became independent farmers on the frontier were known as '' Boers'', with some adopting semi-nomadic lifestyles being denoted as . The Boers formed loose militias, which they termed ''commandos'', and forged alliances with Khoisan peoples to repel Xhosa raids. Both sides launched bloody but inconclusive offensives, and sporadic violence, often accompanied by livestock theft, remained common for several decades.


British colonisation and the Great Trek

Great Britain occupied Cape Town between 1795 and 1803 to prevent it from falling under the control of the French First Republic, which had invaded the Low Countries. After briefly returning to Dutch rule under the Batavian Republic in 1803, the cape was occupied again by the British in 1806. Following the end of the
Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fre ...
, it was formally ceded to Great Britain and became an integral part of the British Empire. British emigration to South Africa began around 1818, subsequently culminating in the arrival of the 1820 Settlers. The new colonists were induced to settle for a variety of reasons, namely to increase the size of the European workforce and to bolster frontier regions against Xhosa incursions. In the first two decades of the 19th century, the Zulu people grew in power and expanded their territory under their leader, Shaka. Shaka's warfare indirectly led to the ('crushing'), in which one to two million people were killed and the inland plateau was devastated and depopulated in the early 1820s. An offshoot of the Zulu, the Matabele people created a larger empire that included large parts of the highveld under their king Mzilikazi. During the early 19th century, many Dutch settlers departed from the Cape Colony, where they had been subjected to British control, in a series of migrant groups who came to be known as , meaning "pathfinders" or "pioneers". They migrated to the future Natal, Free State, and Transvaal regions. The Boers founded the Boer republics: the South African Republic, the
Natalia Republic The Natalia Republic was a short-lived Boer republic founded in 1839 after a Voortrekker victory against the Zulus at the Battle of Blood River. The area was previously named ''Natália'' by Portuguese sailors, due to its discovery on Christ ...
, and the Orange Free State. The discovery of diamonds in 1867 and gold in 1884 in the interior started the
Mineral Revolution The Mineral Revolution is a term used by historians to refer to the rapid industrialisation and economic changes which occurred in South Africa from the 1860s onwards. The Mineral Revolution was largely driven by the need to create a permanen ...
and increased economic growth and immigration. This intensified British efforts to gain control over the indigenous peoples. The struggle to control these important economic resources was a factor in relations between Europeans and the indigenous population and also between the Boers and the British. On 16 May 1876, President Thomas François Burgers of the South African Republic declared war against the Pedi people. King Sekhukhune managed to defeat the army on 1 August 1876. Another attack by the Lydenburg Volunteer Corps was also repulsed. On 16 February 1877, the two parties signed a peace treaty at Botshabelo. The Boers' inability to subdue the Pedi led to the departure of Burgers in favour of
Paul Kruger Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger (; 10 October 1825 – 14 July 1904) was a South African politician. He was one of the dominant political and military figures in 19th-century South Africa, and President of the South African Republic (or ...
and the British annexation of the South African Republic. In 1878 and 1879 three British attacks were successfully repelled until Garnet Wolseley defeated Sekhukhune in November 1879 with an army of 2,000 British soldiers, Boers and 10,000 Swazis. The Anglo-Zulu War was fought in 1879 between the British and the Zulu Kingdom. Following Lord Carnarvon's successful introduction of federation in Canada, it was thought that similar political effort, coupled with military campaigns, might succeed with the African kingdoms, tribal areas and Boer republics in South Africa. In 1874, Henry Bartle Frere was sent to South Africa as the British High Commissioner to bring such plans into being. Among the obstacles were the presence of the independent states of the Boers, and the Zululand army. The Zulu nation defeated the British at the
Battle of Isandlwana The Battle of Isandlwana (alternative spelling: Isandhlwana) on 22 January 1879 was the first major encounter in the Anglo-Zulu War between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom. Eleven days after the British commenced their invasion of Zulul ...
. Eventually, though, Zululand lost the war, resulting in the termination of the Zulu nation's independence.


Boer Wars

The Boer republics successfully resisted British encroachments during the First Boer War (1880–1881) using guerrilla warfare tactics, which were well-suited to local conditions. The British returned with greater numbers, more experience, and new strategy in the Second Boer War (1899–1902) and, although they suffered heavy casualties through attrition, they were ultimately successful. Over 27,000 Boer women and children died in the British concentration camps. South Africa's urban population grew rapidly from the end of the 19th century onward. After the devastation of the wars, Dutch-descendant Boer farmers fled into cities from the devastated Transvaal and Orange Free State territories to become the class of the white urban poor.


Independence

Anti-British policies among white South Africans focused on independence. During the Dutch and British colonial years, racial segregation was mostly informal, though some legislation was enacted to control the settlement and movement of indigenous people, including the Native Location Act of 1879 and the system of pass laws. Eight years after the end of the Second Boer War and after four years of negotiation, the South Africa Act 1909 granted nominal independence while creating the Union of South Africa on 31 May 1910. The union was a dominion that included the former territories of the Cape, Transvaal and Natal colonies, as well as the Orange Free State republic. The
Natives' Land Act The Natives Land Act, 1913 (subsequently renamed Bantu Land Act, 1913 and Black Land Act, 1913; Act No. 27 of 1913) was an Act of the Parliament of South Africa that was aimed at regulating the acquisition of land. According to the ''Encyclopæd ...
of 1913 severely restricted the ownership of land by blacks; at that stage they controlled only 7% of the country. The amount of land reserved for indigenous peoples was later marginally increased. In 1931, the union became fully sovereign from the United Kingdom with the passage of the Statute of Westminster, which abolished the last powers of the Parliament of the United Kingdom to legislate on the country. Only three other African countries—Liberia, Ethiopia, and Egypt—had been independent prior to that point. In 1934, the South African Party and National Party merged to form the United Party, seeking reconciliation between Afrikaners and English-speaking whites. In 1939, the party split over the entry of the union into
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
as an ally of the United Kingdom, a move which the National Party followers strongly opposed.


Beginning of apartheid

In 1948, the National Party was elected to power. It strengthened the racial segregation begun under Dutch and British colonial rule. Taking Canada's Indian Act as a framework, the nationalist government classified all peoples into three races (''Whites, Blacks, Indians and Coloured people (people of mixed race)'') and developed rights and limitations for each. The white minority (less than 20%) controlled the vastly larger black majority. The legally institutionalised segregation became known as '' apartheid''. While whites enjoyed the highest standard of living in all of Africa, comparable to First World Western nations, the black majority remained disadvantaged by almost every standard, including income, education, housing, and life expectancy. The
Freedom Charter The Freedom Charter was the statement of core principles of the South African Congress Alliance, which consisted of the African National Congress (ANC) and its allies: the South African Indian Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats ...
, adopted in 1955 by the
Congress Alliance The Congress Alliance was an anti-apartheid political coalition formed in South Africa in the 1950s. Led by the African National Congress, the CA was multi-racial in makeup and committed to the principle of majority rule. Congress of the Peopl ...
, demanded a non-racial society and an end to discrimination.


Republic

On 31 May 1961, the country became a republic following a referendum (only open to white voters) which narrowly passed; the British-dominated Natal province largely voted against the proposal. Elizabeth II lost the title Queen of South Africa, and the last Governor-General, Charles Robberts Swart, became state president. As a concession to the Westminster system, the appointment of the president remained an appointment by parliament and was virtually powerless until P. W. Botha's Constitution Act of 1983, which eliminated the office of prime minister and instated a unique "strong presidency" responsible to parliament. Pressured by other Commonwealth of Nations countries, South Africa withdrew from the organisation in 1961 and rejoined it in 1994. Despite opposition to apartheid both within and outside the country, the government legislated for a continuation of apartheid. The security forces cracked down on internal dissent, and violence became widespread, with anti-apartheid organisations such as the African National Congress (ANC), the
Azanian People's Organisation The Azanian People's Organisation (AZAPO) is a South African liberation movement and political party. The organisation's two student wings are the Azanian Students' Movement (AZASM) for high school learners and the other being for university leve ...
, and the Pan-Africanist Congress carrying out guerrilla warfare and urban sabotage. The three rival resistance movements also engaged in occasional inter-factional clashes as they jockeyed for domestic influence. Apartheid became increasingly controversial, and several countries began to boycott business with the South African government because of its racial policies. These measures were later extended to international sanctions and the divestment of holdings by foreign investors.


End of apartheid

The Mahlabatini Declaration of Faith, signed by Mangosuthu Buthelezi and Harry Schwarz in 1974, enshrined the principles of peaceful transition of power and equality for all, the first of such agreements by black and white political leaders in South Africa. Ultimately,
F.W. de Klerk Frederik Willem de Klerk (, , 18 March 1936 – 11 November 2021) was a South African politician who served as state president of South Africa from 1989 to 1994 and as deputy president from 1994 to 1996 in the democratic government. As South A ...
opened bilateral discussions with Nelson Mandela in 1993 for a transition of policies and government. In 1990, the National Party government took the first step towards dismantling discrimination when it lifted the ban on the ANC and other political organisations. It released Nelson Mandela from prison after 27 years of serving a sentence for sabotage. A negotiation process followed. With approval from the white electorate in a 1992 referendum, the government continued negotiations to end apartheid. South Africa held its first universal elections in 1994, which the ANC won by an overwhelming majority. It has been in power ever since. The country rejoined the Commonwealth of Nations and became a member of the Southern African Development Community. In post-apartheid South Africa, unemployment remained high. While many blacks have risen to middle or upper classes, the overall unemployment rate of black people worsened between 1994 and 2003 by official metrics but declined significantly using expanded definitions. Poverty among whites, which was previously rare, increased. The government struggled to achieve the monetary and fiscal discipline to ensure both redistribution of wealth and economic growth. The United Nations Human Development Index rose steadily until the mid-1990s then fell from 1995 to 2005 before recovering its 1995 peak in 2013. The fall is in large part attributable to the South African HIV/AIDS pandemic which saw South African life expectancy fall from a high point of 62 years in 1992 to a low of 53 in 2005, and the failure of the government to take steps to address the pandemic in its early years. In May 2008, riots left over 60 people dead. The
Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) was a Geneva-based international non-governmental organisation founded in 1994 by Scott Leckie as a foundation in the Netherlands (Stichting COHRE). Offices At its height in 2008, COHRE maint ...
estimated that over 100,000 people were driven from their homes. The targets were mainly legal and illegal migrants, and refugees seeking asylum, but a third of the victims were South African citizens. In a 2006 survey, the South African Migration Project concluded that South Africans are more opposed to immigration than any other national group. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees in 2008 reported over 200,000 refugees applied for asylum in South Africa, almost four times as many as the year before. These people were mainly from Zimbabwe, though many also come from Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Eritrea,
Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
and Somalia. Competition over jobs, business opportunities, public services and housing has led to tension between refugees and host communities. While
xenophobia in South Africa Prior to 1994, immigrants from elsewhere faced discrimination and even violence in South Africa. After majority rule in 1994, contrary to expectations, the incidence of xenophobia increased. Between 2000 and March 2008, at least 67 people died ...
is still a problem, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 2011 reported that recent violence had not been as widespread as initially feared. Nevertheless, as South Africa continues to grapple with racial issues, one of the proposed solutions has been to pass legislation, such as the pending Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill, to uphold South Africa's ban on racism and commitment to equality. By 2020, numerous warnings have been issued that South Africa is heading towards failed state status with unsustainable government spending, high unemployment, high crime rates, corruption, failing government owned enterprises and collapsing infrastructure. In 2022, The World Economic Forum said that South Africa risks state collapse and identified five major risks facing the country. The Director-General of the South African Treasury, Dondo Mogajane, has said that, "SA is showing the signs of a failing state more common in countries like Sierra Leone and Liberia". Former minister Jay Naidoo has said that South Africa is in serious trouble and is showing signs of a failed state, with record unemployment levels and the fact that many young people will not find a job in their lifetime. Efficient Group chief economist Dawie Roodt said the country is in deep trouble, “South Africans have been getting poorer for a decade". He said he is very concerned because 32 million people get an income from the state. The state cannot afford this anymore". Neal Froneman, CEO of Sibanye-Stillwater, said that crime is out of control, with ‘mafia-style shakedowns’ for procurement contracts becoming the norm. “Government leadership has created this problem and they are doing nothing. The government can’t deal with it because it goes against their ideology". Professor Eddy Maloka, from the Institute of Risk Management, “The ANC has left us in a mess. They’ve turned their crisis into ours... Government has collapsed in areas across the country. We are seeing inner-cities collapse and degenerate”. Professor David Himbara said that "South Africa is a classic case of a de facto one-party state with mismanaged institutions and endemic crime and corruption".


Geography

South Africa is in southernmost Africa, with a coastline that stretches more than and along two oceans (the South Atlantic and the Indian). At , South Africa is the 24th-largest country in the world. Excluding the
Prince Edward Islands The Prince Edward Islands are two small uninhabited islands in the sub-Antarctic Indian Ocean that are part of South Africa. The islands are named Marion Island (named after Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne, 1724–1772) and Prince Edward Islan ...
, the country lies between latitudes 22° and 35°S, and longitudes 16° and 33°E. The interior of South Africa consists of a large, in most places almost flat plateau with an altitude of between and , highest in the east and sloping gently downwards towards the west and north, and slightly so to the south and south-west. This plateau is surrounded by the
Great Escarpment The Great Escarpment is a major topographical feature in Africa that consists of steep slopes from the high central Southern African plateauAtlas of Southern Africa. (1984). p. 13. Reader's Digest Association, Cape Town downward in the directio ...
Atlas of Southern Africa. (1984). p. 13. Reader's Digest Association, Cape Town whose eastern, and highest, stretch is known as the Drakensberg.
Mafadi Mafadi is a peak on the border of South Africa and Lesotho. At a height of , it is the highest mountain in the nation of South Africa, but is lower than Thabana Ntlenyana, the highest peak in Lesotho which is, at , the highest point in Southe ...
in the Drakensberg at is the highest peak. The KwaZulu-Natal–Lesotho international border is formed by the highest portion of the Great Escarpment which reaches an altitude of over . The south and south-western parts of the plateau (at approximately 1,1001,800m above sea level) and the adjoining plain below (at approximately 700800m above sea levelsee map on the right) is known as the Great Karoo, which consists of sparsely populated shrubland. To the north, the Great Karoo fades into the more arid Bushmanland, which eventually becomes the Kalahari Desert in the north-west of the country. The mid-eastern and highest part of the plateau is known as the Highveld. This relatively well-watered area is home to a great proportion of the country's commercial farmlands and contains its largest conurbation (Gauteng). To the north of Highveld, from about the 25°30'S line of latitude, the plateau slopes downwards into the
Bushveld The Bushveld (from af, bosveld, af, bos 'bush' and af, veld) is a sub-tropical woodland ecoregion of Southern Africa. It encompasses most of Limpopo Province and a small part of the North West Province of South Africa, the Central and Nort ...
, which ultimately gives way to the Limpopo River lowlands or
Lowveld Veld ( or ), also spelled veldt, is a type of wide open rural landscape in :Southern Africa. Particularly, it is a flat area covered in grass or low scrub, especially in the countries of South Africa, Lesotho, Eswatini, Zimbabwe and Botswa ...
. The coastal belt, below the Great Escarpment, moving clockwise from the northeast, consists of the Limpopo Lowveld, which merges into the Mpumalanga Lowveld, below the Mpumalanga Drakensberg (the eastern portion of the Great Escarpment). This is hotter, drier and less intensely cultivated than the Highveld above the escarpment. The Kruger National Park, located in the provinces of Limpopo and Mpumalanga in north-eastern South Africa, occupies a large portion of the Lowveld covering 19,633 square kilometres (7,580 sq mi.) The coastal belt below the south and south-western stretches of the Great Escarpment contains several ranges of
Cape Fold Mountains The Cape Fold Belt is a fold and thrust belt of late Paleozoic age, which affected the sequence of sedimentary rock layers of the Cape Supergroup in the southwestern corner of South Africa. It was originally continuous with the Ventana Mou ...
which run parallel to the coast, separating the Great Escarpment from the ocean.Geological map of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland (1970). Council for Geoscience, Geological Survey of South Africa. (These parallel ranges of fold mountains are shown on the map, above left. Note the course of the Great Escarpment to the north of these mountain ranges.) The land between the Outeniqua and Langeberg ranges to the south and the Swartberg range to the north is known as the
Little Karoo The Karoo ( ; from the Afrikaans borrowing of the South Khoekhoe !Orakobab or Khoemana word ''ǃ’Aukarob'' "Hardveld") is a semi-desert natural region of South Africa. No exact definition of what constitutes the Karoo is available, so its ext ...
, which consists of semi-desert shrubland similar to that of the Great Karoo, except that its northern strip along the foothills of the Swartberg Mountains has a somewhat higher rainfall and is, therefore, more cultivated than the Great Karoo. The Little Karoo is famous for its ostrich farming around
Oudtshoorn Oudtshoorn (, ), the "ostrich capital of the world", is a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa, located between the Swartberg mountains to the north and the Outeniqua Mountains to the south. Two ostrich-feather booms, during 1865–1 ...
. The lowland area to the north of the Swartberg range up to the Great Escarpment is the lowland part of the Great Karoo, which is climatically and botanically almost indistinguishable from the Karoo above the Great Escarpment. The narrow coastal strip between the Outeniqua and Langeberg ranges and the ocean has a moderately high year-round rainfall, which is known as the
Garden Route The Garden Route (Afrikaans: ''Tuinroete'') is a stretch of the south-eastern coast of South Africa which extends from Witsand in the Western Cape to the border of Tsitsikamma Storms River in the Eastern Cape. The name comes from the verdan ...
. It is famous for the most extensive areas of forests in South Africa (a generally forest-poor country). In the south-west corner of the country, the Cape Peninsula forms the southernmost tip of the coastal strip which borders the Atlantic Ocean and ultimately terminates at the country's border with Namibia at the
Orange River The Orange River (from Afrikaans/Dutch: ''Oranjerivier'') is a river in Southern Africa. It is the longest river in South Africa. With a total length of , the Orange River Basin extends from Lesotho into South Africa and Namibia to the north ...
. The Cape Peninsula has a Mediterranean climate, making it and its immediate surrounds the only portion of Sub-Saharan Africa which receives most of its rainfall in winter.Atlas of Southern Africa. (1984). p. 19. Reader's Digest Association, Cape Town The coastal belt to the north of the Cape Peninsula is bounded on the west by the Atlantic Ocean and the first row of north–south running Cape Fold Mountains to the east. The Cape Fold Mountains peter out at about the 32°S line of latitude, after which the Great Escarpment bounds the coastal plain. The most southerly portion of this coastal belt is known as the Swartland and Malmesbury Plain, which is an important wheat growing region, relying on winter rains. The region further north is known as Namaqualand, which becomes more arid near the Orange River. The little rain that falls tends to fall in winter, which results in one of the world's most spectacular displays of flowers carpeting huge stretches of veld in spring (AugustSeptember). South Africa also has one offshore possession, the small sub-Antarctic archipelago of the Prince Edward Islands, consisting of Marion Island () and Prince Edward Island () (not to be confused with the Canadian province of the same name).


Climate

South Africa has a generally temperate climate because it is surrounded by the Atlantic and Indian Oceans on three sides, because it is located in the climatically milder Southern Hemisphere, and because its average elevation rises steadily toward the north (toward the equator) and further inland. This varied topography and oceanic influence result in a great variety of climatic zones. The climatic zones range from the extreme desert of the southern Namib in the farthest northwest to the lush subtropical climate in the east along the border with Mozambique and the Indian Ocean. Winters in South Africa occur between June and August. The extreme southwest has a climate similar to that of the Mediterranean with wet winters and hot, dry summers, hosting the famous fynbos biome of shrubland and thicket. This area produces much of the wine in South Africa and is known for its wind, which blows intermittently almost all year. The severity of this wind made passing around the Cape of Good Hope is particularly treacherous for sailors, causing many shipwrecks. Further east on the south coast, rainfall is distributed more evenly throughout the year, producing a green landscape. The annual rainfall increases south of the Lowveld, especially near the coast, which is subtropical. The Free State is particularly flat because it lies centrally on the high plateau. North of the Vaal River, the Highveld becomes better watered and does not experience subtropical extremes of heat. Johannesburg, in the centre of the Highveld, is at above sea level and receives an annual rainfall of . Winters in this region are cold, although snow is rare. The coldest place on mainland South Africa is Buffelsfontein in the Eastern Cape, where a temperature of was recorded in 2013. The Prince Edward Islands have colder average annual temperatures, but Buffelsfontein has colder extremes. The deep interior of mainland South Africa has the hottest temperatures: a temperature of was recorded in 1948 in the Northern Cape Kalahari near Upington, but this temperature is unofficial and was not recorded with standard equipment; the official highest temperature is at
Vioolsdrif Vioolsdrif is a village on the Orange River in the north-western Namaqualand area of South Africa. Origin of name The name in Afrikaans means 'the ford (shallow river crossing) of the violin'. It is reportedly named after Jan Viool ("John Violi ...
in January 1993.
Climate change in South Africa Climate change in South Africa is leading to increased temperatures and rainfall variability. Evidence shows that extreme weather events are becoming more prominent due to climate change.Republic of South Africa, National Climate Change Adaptation ...
is leading to increased temperatures and rainfall variability. Extreme weather events are becoming more prominent.Republic of South Africa,
National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy (NCCAS)
,'' Version UE10, 13 November 2019.
This is a critical concern for South Africans as climate change will affect the overall status and wellbeing of the country, for example with regards to water resources. Speedy environmental changes are resulting in clear effects on the community and environmental level in different ways and aspects, starting with air quality, to temperature and weather patterns, reaching out to food security and disease burden. South Africa contributes considerable carbon dioxide emissions, being the 14th largest emitter of carbon dioxide, primarily from its heavy reliance on coal and oil for energy production. As part of its international commitments, South Africa has pledged to peak emissions between 2020 and 2025.


Biodiversity

South Africa signed the Rio Convention on Biological Diversity on 4 June 1994 and became a party to the convention on 2 November 1995. It has subsequently produced a National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, which was received by the convention on 7 June 2006. The country is ranked sixth out of the world's seventeen megadiverse countries.
Ecotourism in South Africa Ecotourism is the concept of responsible trips and travel to areas that might be protected and especially fragile. The intent is to create as little detrimental impact on the environment as possible. South Africa has used ecotourism to sustain an ...
has become more prevalent in recent years, as a possible method of maintaining and improving biodiversity. Numerous mammals are found in the Bushveld including lions, African leopards, South African cheetahs, southern white rhinos,
blue wildebeest The blue wildebeest (''Connochaetes taurinus''), also called the common wildebeest, white-bearded gnu or brindled gnu, is a large antelope and one of the two species of wildebeest. It is placed in the genus '' Connochaetes'' and family Bovidae, a ...
, kudus, impalas, hyenas, hippopotamuses and
South African giraffe The South African giraffe or Cape giraffe (''Giraffa camelopardalis giraffa'') is a subspecies of giraffe found in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. It has rounded or blotched spots, some with star-like extensions on a ligh ...
s. A significant extent of the Bushveld exists in the north-east including Kruger National Park and the Sabi Sand Game Reserve, as well as in the far north in the Waterberg Biosphere. South Africa houses many
endemic species Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...
, among them the critically endangered
riverine rabbit The riverine rabbit (''Bunolagus monticularis''), also known as the bushman rabbit or bushman hare, is a rabbit with an extremely limited distribution area, found only in the central and southern regions of the Karoo Desert of South Africa's N ...
(''Bunolagus monticullaris'') in the Karoo. Up to 1945, more than 4,900 species of fungi (including lichen-forming species) had been recorded. In 2006, the number of fungi in South Africa was estimated at 200,000 species but did not take into account fungi associated with insects. If correct, then the number of South African fungi dwarfs that of its plants. In at least some major South African ecosystems, an exceptionally high percentage of fungi are highly specific in terms of the plants with which they occur. The country's Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan does not mention fungi (including lichen-forming fungi). With more than 22,000 different vascular plants, or about 9% of all the known species of plants on Earth, South Africa is particularly rich in plant diversity. The most prevalent biome is the grassland, particularly on the Highveld, where the plant cover is dominated by different grasses, low shrubs, and acacia, mainly camel-thorn ('' Vachellia erioloba''). Vegetation is sparse towards the north-west because of low rainfall. There are numerous species of water-storing succulents, like aloes and euphorbias, in the very hot and dry Namaqualand area (According to the World Wildlife Fund, South Africa is home to around a third of all succulent species). The grass and thorn savanna turns slowly into a bush savanna towards the north-east of the country, with denser growth. There are significant numbers of
baobab ''Adansonia'' is a genus made up of eight species of medium-to-large deciduous trees known as baobabs ( or ). They are placed in the Malvaceae family, subfamily Bombacoideae. They are native to Madagascar, mainland Africa, and Australia.T ...
trees in this area, near the northern end of Kruger National Park. The fynbos biome, which makes up the majority of the area and plant life in the Cape Floristic Region, is located in a small region of the Western Cape and contains more than 9,000 of those species, or three times more plant species than found in the Amazon rainforest, making it among the richest regions on earth in terms of plant diversity. Most of the plants are evergreen hard-leaf plants with fine, needle-like leaves, such as the
sclerophyll Sclerophyll is a type of vegetation that is adapted to long periods of dryness and heat. The plants feature hard leaves, short internodes (the distance between leaves along the stem) and leaf orientation which is parallel or oblique to direct ...
ous plants. Another uniquely South African flowering plant group is the genus '' Protea'', with around 130 different species. While South Africa has a great wealth of flowering plants, only 1% of the land is forest, almost exclusively in the humid coastal plain of KwaZulu-Natal, where there are also areas of
Southern Africa mangroves The Southern Africa mangroves are mangrove ecoregion on the Mozambique's southernmost coast and the eastern coast of South Africa. Location and description These mangroves grow in the mouths of rivers on the Indian Ocean coast of South Africa, w ...
in river mouths. Even smaller reserves of forests are out of the reach of fire, known as montane forests. Plantations of imported tree species are predominant, particularly the non-native eucalyptus and pine.


Conservation issues

South Africa has lost a large area of natural habitat in the last four decades, primarily because of overpopulation, sprawling development patterns, and deforestation during the 19th century. The country had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 4.94/10, ranking it 112th globally out of 172 countries. South Africa is one of the worst affected countries in the world when it comes to invasion by alien species with many (e.g., black wattle, Port Jackson willow, '' Hakea'', '' Lantana'' and '' Jacaranda'') posing a significant threat to the native biodiversity and the already scarce water resources. The original temperate forest found by the first European settlers was exploited until only small patches remained. Currently, South African hardwood trees like real yellowwood (''
Podocarpus latifolius ''Podocarpus latifolius'' (broad-leaved yellowwood or real yellowwood, af, Opregte-geelhout, nso, Mogôbagôba, xh, Umcheya, zu, Umkhoba) is a large evergreen tree up to 35 m high and 3 m trunk diameter, in the conifer family Podoc ...
''), stinkwood (''
Ocotea bullata ''Ocotea bullata'', (stinkwood or black stinkwood, af, Stinkhout, xh, Umhlungulu, zu, Umnukane) is a species of flowering tree native to South Africa. It produces very fine and valuable timber which was formerly much sought after to make fur ...
''), and South African black ironwood (''
Olea capensis ''Olea capensis'', the black ironwood, is an African tree species in the olive family Oleaceae. It is widespread in sub-Saharan Africa: from the east in Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan, south to the tip of South Africa, and west to Cameroon, Sierra ...
'') are under government protection. Statistics from the Department of Environmental Affairs show a record 1,215 rhinos were killed in 2014. Because South Africa is home to a third of all succulent species, many endemic to the Karoo, it makes it a hotspot for plant poaching, leading to many species to be threatened with extinction. Climate change is expected to bring considerable warming and drying to much of this already semi-arid region, with greater frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as heat waves, flooding and drought. According to computer-generated climate modelling produced by the South African National Biodiversity Institute, parts of southern Africa will see an increase in temperature by about along the coast to more than in the already hot
hinterland Hinterland is a German word meaning "the land behind" (a city, a port, or similar). Its use in English was first documented by the geographer George Chisholm in his ''Handbook of Commercial Geography'' (1888). Originally the term was associate ...
such as the Northern Cape in late spring and summertime by 2050. The Cape Floral Region is predicted to be hit very hard by climate change. Drought, increased intensity and frequency of fire, and climbing temperatures are expected to push many rare species towards extinction. South Africa has published two national climate change reports in 2011 and 2016.


Demographics

South Africa is a nation of about 60 million (as of 2021) people of diverse origins, cultures, languages, and religions. The last census was held in 2011, with estimates produced on an annual basis. South Africa is home to an estimated five million
illegal immigrants Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of the immigration laws of that country or the continued residence without the legal right to live in that country. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upwa ...
, including some three million Zimbabweans. A series of anti-immigrant riots occurred beginning in May 2008. Statistics South Africa asks people to describe themselves in the census in terms of five racial population groups. The 2011 census figures for these groups were: Black African at 79.2%, White at 8.9%, Coloured at 8.9%, Indian or Asian at 2.5%, and Other/Unspecified at 0.5%. The first census in 1911 showed that whites made up 22% of the population; this had declined to 16% by 1980. South Africa hosts a sizeable refugee and asylum seeker population. According to the ''World Refugee Survey 2008'', published by the
U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) was established "To protect the rights and address the needs of persons in forced or voluntary migration worldwide and support their transition to a dignified life." History The history of t ...
, this population numbered approximately 144,700 in 2007. Groups of refugees and asylum seekers numbering over 10,000 included people from Zimbabwe (48,400), the DRC (24,800), and Somalia (12,900). These populations mainly lived in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Cape Town, and Port Elizabeth.


Languages

South Africa has 11 official languages: Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans,
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...
, Pedi, Tswana, Southern Sotho, Tsonga, Swazi,
Venda Venda () was a Bantustan in northern South Africa, which is fairly close to the South African border with Zimbabwe to the north, while to the south and east, it shared a long border with another black homeland, Gazankulu. It is now part of t ...
, and Southern Ndebele (in order of first language speakers). In this regard it is fourth only to Bolivia,
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
, and Zimbabwe in number. While all the languages are formally equal, some languages are spoken more than others. According to the 2011 census, the three most spoken first languages are Zulu (22.7%), Xhosa (16.0%), and Afrikaans (13.5%). Although English is recognised as the language of commerce and science, it is only the fourth most common home language, that of only 9.6% of South Africans in 2011; nevertheless, it has become the de facto lingua franca of the nation. Estimates based on the 1991 census suggest just under half of South Africans can speak English. It is the second most commonly spoken language outside of the household, after Zulu. The country also recognises several unofficial languages, including
Fanagalo Fanagalo, or Fanakalo, is a vernacular or pidgin based primarily on Zulu with input from English and a small amount of Afrikaans input. It is used as a lingua franca, mainly in the gold, diamond, coal and copper mining industries in South Afr ...
, Khoe, Lobedu, Nama, Northern Ndebele, Phuthi, and
South African Sign Language South African Sign Language (SASL, af, Suid-Afrikaanse Gebaretaal) is the primary sign language used by deaf people in South Africa. The South African government added a National Language Unit for South African Sign Language in 2001. SASL i ...
. These unofficial languages may be used in certain official uses in limited areas where it has been determined that these languages are prevalent. Many of the unofficial languages of the San and Khoekhoe peoples contain regional dialects stretching northwards into Namibia and Botswana, and elsewhere. These people, who are a physically distinct population from the Bantu people who make up most of the Black Africans in South Africa, have their own cultural identity based on their hunter-gatherer societies. They have been marginalised to a great extent, and the remainder of their languages are in danger of becoming extinct. White South Africans may also speak European languages, including Italian, Portuguese (also spoken by black Angolans and Mozambicans), Dutch, German, and Greek, while some Indian South Africans speak Indian languages, such as Gujarati, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu. French is spoken by migrants from Francophone Africa.


Religion

According to the 2001 census, Christians accounted for 79.8% of the population, with a majority of them being members of various
Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
denominations (broadly defined to include syncretic African-initiated churches) and a minority of Roman Catholics and other Christians. Christian category includes Zion Christian (11.1%),
Pentecostal Pentecostalism or classical Pentecostalism is a Protestantism, Protestant Charismatic Christianity, Charismatic Christian movementCharismatic) (8.2%),
Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...
(7.1%), Methodist (6.8%), Dutch Reformed (6.7%), and Anglican (3.8%). Members of remaining Christian churches accounted for another 36% of the population. Muslims accounted for 1.5% of the population, Hindus 1.2%, traditional African religions 0.3% and Judaism 0.2%. 15.1% had no religious affiliation, 0.6% were "other" and 1.4% were "unspecified." African-initiated churches formed the largest of the Christian groups. It was believed that many of the persons who claimed no affiliation with any organised religion adhered to a traditional African religion. There are an estimated 200,000 traditional healers, and up to 60% of South Africans consult these healers, generally called ('diviner') or ('herbalist'). These healers use a combination of ancestral spiritual beliefs and a belief in the spiritual and medicinal properties of local fauna and flora, commonly known as ('medicine'), to facilitate healing in clients. Many peoples have syncretic religious practices combining Christian and indigenous influences. South African Muslims comprise mainly Coloureds and Indians. They have been joined by black or white South African converts as well as those from other parts of Africa. South African Muslims describe their faith as the fastest-growing religion of conversion in the country, with the number of black Muslims growing sixfold, from 12,000 in 1991 to 74,700 in 2004. There is a substantial Jewish population, descended from European Jews who arrived as a minority among other European settlers. This population peaked in the 1970s at 120,000, though only around 67,000 remain today, the rest having emigrated, mostly to Israel. Even so, these numbers make the Jewish community in South Africa the twelfth largest in the world.


Education

The adult literacy rate in 2007 was 88.7%. South Africa has a three-tier system of education starting with primary school, followed by high school, and tertiary education in the form of (academic) universities and universities of technology. Learners have twelve years of formal schooling, from grade 1 to 12. Grade R, or grade 0, is a pre-primary foundation year. Primary schools span the first seven years of schooling. High school education spans a further five years. The National Senior Certificate examination takes place at the end of grade 12 and is necessary for tertiary studies at a South African university. Public universities are divided into three types: traditional universities, which offer theoretically oriented university degrees;
universities of technology An institute of technology (also referred to as: technological university, technical university, university of technology, technological educational institute, technical college, polytechnic university or just polytechnic) is an institution of te ...
(formerly called ''
technikon A technikon was a post-secondary institute of technology (polytech) in South Africa. It focused on career-oriented vocational training. There were 15 technikons in the 1990s, but they were merged or restructured as universities (especially universi ...
s''), which offer vocationally-oriented diplomas and degrees; and comprehensive universities, which offer both types of qualification. There are 23 public universities in South Africa: 11 traditional universities, 6 universities of technology, and 6 comprehensive universities. Under apartheid, schools for black people were subject to discrimination through inadequate funding and a separate syllabus called '' Bantu Education'' which only taught skills sufficient to work as labourers. In 2004, South Africa started reforming its tertiary education system, merging and incorporating small universities into larger institutions, and renaming all tertiary education institutions "university". By 2015, 1.4 million students in higher education have benefited from a financial aid scheme which was promulgated in 1999.


Health

According to the
South African Institute of Race Relations Established in 1929,http://www.sairr.org.za/profile/ the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) is a research and policy organisation in South Africa. The institute is "one of the oldest liberal institutions in the country". The i ...
, the life expectancy in 2009 was 71 years for a white South African and 48 years for a black South African. The healthcare spending in the country is about 9% of GDP. About 84% of the population depends on the public healthcare system, which is beset with chronic human resource shortages and limited resources. About 20% of the population use private healthcare. Only 16% of the population are covered by medical aid schemes; The rest pay for private care out-of-pocket or through in-hospital-only plans. The three dominant hospital groups, Mediclinic, Life Healthcare and Netcare, together control 75% of the private hospital market.


HIV/AIDS

According to the 2015 UNAIDS medical report, South Africa has an estimated seven million people that are living with HIV – more than any other country in the world. In 2018, HIV prevalence—the percentage of people living with HIV—among adults (15–49 years) was 20.4%, and in the same year 71,000 people died from an AIDS-related illness. A 2008 study revealed that HIV/AIDS infection is distinctly divided along racial lines: 13.6% of blacks are HIV-positive, whereas only 0.3% of whites have the virus. Most deaths are experienced by economically active individuals, resulting in many AIDS orphans who in many cases depend on the state for care and financial support. It is estimated that there are 1,200,000 orphans in South Africa. The link between HIV, a virus spread primarily by sexual contact, and AIDS was long denied by President Thabo Mbeki and his health minister
Manto Tshabalala-Msimang Mantombazana "Manto" Edmie Tshabalala-Msimang (née Mali; 9 October 1940 – 16 December 2009) was a South African politician. She was Deputy Minister of Justice from 1996 to 1999 and served as Minister of Health from 1999 to 2008 under Preside ...
, who insisted that the many deaths in the country are caused by malnutrition, and hence poverty, and not HIV. In 2007, in response to international pressure, the government made efforts to fight AIDS. After the 2009 general elections, President Jacob Zuma appointed
Aaron Motsoaledi Pakishe Aaron Motsoaledi (born 7 August 1958, in Transvaal, now Limpopo) is the Minister of Home Affairs in the Cabinet of South Africa. He was previously the Minister of Health from 2009 to 2019. He was a MEC in Limpopo province for agricultur ...
as the health minister and committed his government to increasing funding for and widening the scope of HIV treatment, and by 2015, South Africa had made significant progress, with the widespread availability of antiretroviral drugs resulted in an increase in life expectancy from 52.1 years to 62.5 years.


Urbanization

One online database lists South Africa having more than 12,600 cities and towns. The following are the largest cities and towns in South Africa.


Politics

South Africa is a parliamentary republic, but unlike most such republics, the president is both head of state and head of government and depends for his tenure on the confidence of Parliament. The executive, legislature and judiciary are all subject to the supremacy of the Constitution of South Africa, and the superior courts have the power to strike down executive actions and acts of Parliament if they are unconstitutional. The National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, consists of 400 members and is elected every five years by a system of party-list proportional representation. The
National Council of Provinces The National Council of Provinces (NCOP) is the upper house of the Parliament of South Africa under the (post-apartheid) constitution which came into full effect in 1997. It replaced the former Senate, but is very similar to that body, and to ...
, the upper house, consists of ninety members, with each of the nine provincial legislatures electing ten members. After each parliamentary election, the National Assembly elects one of its members as president; hence the president serves a term of office the same as that of the Assembly, normally five years. No president may serve more than two terms in office. The president appoints a deputy president and ministers (each representing a department) who form the
cabinet Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to: Furniture * Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers * Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets * Filin ...
. The National Assembly may remove the president and the cabinet by a motion of no confidence. In the most recent election, held on 8 May 2019, the ANC won 58% of the vote and 230 seats, while the main opposition, the Democratic Alliance, won 21% of the vote and 84 seats. The Economic Freedom Fighters, founded by
Julius Malema Julius Sello Malema (born 3 March 1981) is a South African politician and activist who is a Member of Parliament and the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), a left-wing party which he founded in 2013. He was formerly the President o ...
, former president of the ANC Youth League who was later expelled from the ANC, won 11% of the vote and 44 seats. The ANC has been the governing political party in South Africa since the end of apartheid. South Africa has no legally defined capital city. The fourth chapter of the constitution states "The seat of Parliament is Cape Town, but an Act of Parliament enacted in accordance with section 76(1) and (5) may determine that the seat of Parliament is elsewhere." The country's three branches of government are split over different cities. Cape Town, as the seat of Parliament, is the legislative capital; Pretoria, as the seat of the president and cabinet, is the administrative capital; and Bloemfontein is the seat of the Supreme Court of Appeal, is the judicial capital; while the Constitutional Court of South Africa sits in Johannesburg. Most foreign embassies are located in Pretoria. Since 2004, South Africa has had many thousands of popular protests, some violent, making it, according to one academic, the "most protest-rich country in the world". There have been numerous incidents of political repression as well as threats of future repression in violation of the constitution, leading some analysts and civil society organisations to conclude that there is or could be a new climate of political repression, or a decline in political tolerance. In 2008, South Africa placed fifth out of 48 sub-Saharan African countries on the Ibrahim Index of African Governance. South Africa scored well in the categories of Rule of Law, Transparency and Corruption, and Participation and Human Rights, but score low in Safety and Security. In 2006, South Africa became the first and only African country to legalise same-sex marriage. The Constitution of South Africa is the supreme rule of law in the country. The primary sources of South African law are Roman-Dutch mercantile law and personal law and English Common law, as imports of Dutch settlements and British colonialism. The first European-based law in South Africa was brought by the Dutch East India Company and is called Roman-Dutch law. It was imported before the codification of European law into the Napoleonic Code and is comparable in many ways to Scots law. This was followed in the 19th century by English law, both common and statutory. After unification in 1910, South Africa had its own parliament which passed laws specific for South Africa, building on those previously passed for the individual member colonies. The judicial system consists of the magistrates' courts, which hear lesser criminal cases and smaller civil cases; the High Court, which has divisions that serve as the courts of
general jurisdiction {{Globalize, article, USA, 2name=the United States, date=December 2010 A court of general jurisdiction is a court with authority to hear cases of all kinds – criminal, civil, family, probate, and so forth. United States All federal courts ...
for specific areas; the Supreme Court of Appeal; and the Constitutional Court, which is the highest court.


Foreign relations

As the Union of South Africa, the country was a founding member of the United Nations (UN), with Prime Minister Jan Smuts writing the preamble to the UN Charter. South Africa is one of the founding members of the African Union (AU) and has the third largest economy of all the members. It is a founding member of the AU's New Partnership for Africa's Development. After apartheid ended, South Africa was readmitted to the Commonwealth of Nations. The country is a member of the Group of 77 and chaired the organisation in 2006. South Africa is also a member of the Southern African Development Community,
South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone The South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone (abbreviations: ZPCAS or ZOPACAS; es, Zona de Paz y Cooperación del Atlántico Sur; pt, Zona de Paz e Cooperação do Atlântico Sul; also called the ''Zone of Peace and Cooperation of the South A ...
,
Southern African Customs Union The Southern African Customs Union (SACU) is a customs union among five countries of Southern Africa: Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and South Africa. Its headquarters are in the Namibian capital, Windhoek. It was established in 1910. His ...
, Antarctic Treaty System, World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund, G20, G8+5, and the
Port Management Association of Eastern and Southern Africa A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Ha ...
. South Africa has played a key role as a mediator in African conflicts over the last decade, such as in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Comoros, and Zimbabwe. President Jacob Zuma and Chinese President Hu Jintao upgraded bilateral ties between the two countries in 2010 when they signed the Beijing Agreement which elevated South Africa's earlier "strategic partnership" with China to the higher level of "comprehensive strategic partnership" in both economic and political affairs, including the strengthening of exchanges between their respective ruling parties and legislatures. In 2011, South Africa joined the Brazil-Russia-India-China (
BRICS BRICS is an acronym for five leading emerging economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. The first four were initially grouped as "BRIC" (or "the BRICs") in 2001 by Goldman Sachs economist Jim O'Neill, who coined the te ...
) grouping of countries, identified by Zuma as the country's largest trading partners and also the largest trading partners with Africa as a whole. Zuma asserted that BRICS member countries would also work with each other through the UN, G20, and the India, Brazil South Africa ( IBSA) forum.


Military

The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) was created in 1994 as a
volunteer military A volunteer military system or all volunteer military system (AVMS) is a military service system that maintains the military only with applicants without compulsory conscription. A country may offer attractive pay and benefits through military re ...
composed of the former South African Defence Force, the forces of the African nationalist groups ( and Azanian People's Liberation Army), and the former Bantustan defence forces. The SANDF is subdivided into four branches, the South African Army, the South African Air Force, the South African Navy, and the South African Military Health Service. In recent years, the SANDF has become a major peacekeeping force in Africa, and has been involved in operations in Lesotho, the DRC, and Burundi, amongst others. It has also served in multinational UN Peacekeeping forces such as the UN Force Intervention Brigade. According to global firepower South Africa is ranked the 26th strongest military in the world and the 2nd strongest in Africa. South Africa is the only African country to have successfully developed nuclear weapons. It became the first country (followed by Ukraine) with nuclear capability to voluntarily renounce and dismantle its programme and in the process signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1991. South Africa undertook a nuclear weapons programme in the 1970s According to President F.W. de Klerk, the decision to build a "nuclear deterrent" was taken "as early as 1974 against a backdrop of a Soviet expansionist threat." South Africa is alleged to have conducted a nuclear test over the Atlantic in 1979, although this is officially denied; de Klerk maintained that South Africa had "never conducted a clandestine nuclear test." Six nuclear devices were completed between 1980 and 1990 but all were dismantled by 1991. In 2017, South Africa signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.


Law enforcement and crime

Law enforcement in South Africa is primarily the responsibility of the South African Police Service (SAPS), South Africa's national police force. SAPS is responsible for investigating crime and security throughout the country. From April 2017 to March 2018, on average 57 murders were committed each day in South Africa. In the year ended March 2017, there were 20,336 murders and the murder rate was 35.9 per 100,000 – over five times higher than the global average of 6.2 per 100,000. More than 526,000 South Africans were murdered from 1994 to 2019. Middle-class South Africans seek security in gated communities. The
private security industry in South Africa The private security industry in South Africa is an industry providing guarding, monitoring, armed reaction, escorting, investigating and other security-related services to private individuals and companies in the country. Over the years there h ...
is the largest in the world, with nearly 9,000 registered companies and 400,000 registered active private security guards, more than the South African police and army combined. Many emigrants from South Africa state that crime was a major factor in their decision to leave. Crime against the farming community has continued to be a major problem. In an attempt to reduce crime rate, the police arrested over 500 undocumented foreigners in a raid in August 2019. South Africa has a high rape rate, with 43,195 rapes reported in 2014/15, and an unknown number of sexual assaults going unreported. A 2009 survey of 1,738 men in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape by the Medical Research Council found one in four men admitted to raping someone, and another survey of 4,000 women in Johannesburg by CIET Africa found one in three said they had been raped in the past year. Rape occurs most commonly within relationships, but many men and women say that rape cannot occur in relationships; however, one in four women reported having been abused by an intimate partner. Rapes are also perpetrated by children (some as young as ten). The incidence of child and infant rape is among the highest in the world, largely as a result of the virgin cleansing myth, and a number of high-profile cases (sometimes as young as eight months) have outraged the nation. Between 1994 and 2018, there were more than 500 xenophobic attacks against foreigners in South Africa. The
2019 Johannesburg riots The 2019 Johannesburg riots occurred in the South African city of Johannesburg from 1–5 September 2019, leading to the deaths of at least seven people. The riots were xenophobic in nature, targeting foreign nationals from other African countri ...
were similar in nature and origin to the 2008 xenophobic riots that also occurred in Johannesburg.


Administrative divisions

Each of the nine provinces is governed by a unicameral legislature, which is elected every five years by party-list proportional representation. The legislature elects a premier as head of government, and the premier appoints an Executive Council as a provincial cabinet. The powers of provincial governments are limited to topics listed in the constitution; these topics include such fields as health, education, public housing and transport. The provinces are in turn divided into 52 districts: 8
metropolitan Metropolitan may refer to: * Metropolitan area, a region consisting of a densely populated urban core and its less-populated surrounding territories * Metropolitan borough, a form of local government district in England * Metropolitan county, a typ ...
and 44 district municipalities. The district municipalities are further subdivided into 205 local municipalities. The metropolitan municipalities, which govern the largest urban agglomerations, perform the functions of both district and local municipalities.


Economy

South Africa has a mixed economy, the third largest in Africa, after Nigeria and Egypt. It also has a relatively high gross domestic product (GDP) per capita compared to other countries in sub-Saharan Africa (US$11,750 at purchasing power parity as of 2012). Despite this, South Africa is still burdened by a relatively high rate of poverty and unemployment and is ranked in the top ten countries in the world for income inequality, measured by the Gini coefficient. In 2015, 71% of net wealth are held by 10% of the population, whereas 60% of the population held only 7% of the net wealth, and the Gini coefficient was 0.63, whereas in 1996 was 0.61. Unlike most of the world's poor countries, South Africa does not have a thriving informal economy. Only 15% of South African jobs are in the informal sector, compared with around half in Brazil and
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
and nearly three-quarters in
Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...
. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ( OECD) attributes this difference to South Africa's widespread welfare system. World Bank research shows that South Africa has one of the widest gaps between per capita GDP versus its Human Development Index ranking, with only Botswana showing a larger gap. After 1994, government policy brought down inflation, stabilised public finances, and some foreign capital was attracted, however growth was still subpar. From 2004 onward, economic growth picked up significantly; both employment and capital formation increased. During the presidency of Jacob Zuma, the government increased the role of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Some of the biggest SOEs are Eskom, the electric power monopoly, South African Airways (SAA), and Transnet, the railroad and ports monopoly. Some of these SOEs have not been profitable, such as SAA, which has required bailouts totaling R30 billion ($ billion) over the 20 years preceding 2015. Principal international trading partners of South Africa—besides other African countries—include Germany, the United States, China, Japan, the United Kingdom and Spain. The 2020
Financial Secrecy Index The Financial Secrecy Index (FSI) is a report published by the advocacy organization Tax Justice Network (TJN) which ranks countries by ''financial secrecy indicators'', weighted by the economic flows of each country. It looks at how wealthy ...
ranked South Africa as the 58th safest tax haven in the world. The South African agricultural industry contributes around 10% of formal employment, relatively low compared to other parts of Africa, as well as providing work for casual labourers and contributing around 2.6% of GDP for the nation. Due to the aridity of the land, only 13.5% can be used for crop production, and only 3% is considered high potential land. In August 2013, South Africa was ranked as the top African Country of the Future by '' fDi Intelligence'' based on the country's
economic potential Economic potential is the potential of a region, nation, or corporation for economic development and growth. Typically, discussions of economic potential occur when available resources have not yet been tapped and fully developed or exploited, pos ...
, labour environment, cost-effectiveness, infrastructure, business friendliness, and foreign direct investment strategy.


Mining

South Africa has always been a mining powerhouse. Diamond and gold production were in 2013 well down from their peaks, though South Africa is still number five in gold and remains a cornucopia of mineral riches. It is the world's largest producer of chrome, manganese, platinum, vanadium and vermiculite. It is the second largest producer of ilmenite, palladium, rutile and zirconium. It is the world's third largest coal exporter. It is a huge producer of iron ore; in 2012, it overtook India to become the world's third-biggest iron ore supplier to China, the world's largest consumers of iron ore.


Labour market

From 1995 to 2003, the number of formal jobs decreased and informal jobs increased; overall unemployment worsened. According to data published by the University of Cape Town, between 2017 and the end of 2020, South Africa had lost 56% of its middle-class earners, and the number of ultra-poor who earn below minimum wage had increased by 6.6 million individuals (54%). The government's Black Economic Empowerment policies have drawn criticism from Neva Makgetla, previous lead economist for research and information at the
Development Bank of Southern Africa The Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) is a development finance institution wholly owned by the Government of South Africa. The bank intends to "accelerate sustainable socio-economic development in the Southern African Development Communi ...
, for focusing "almost exclusively on promoting individual ownership by black people hichdoes little to address broader economic disparities, though the rich may become more diverse." Official affirmative action policies have seen a rise in black economic wealth and an emerging black middle class. Other problems include state ownership and interference, which impose high barriers to entry in many areas. Restrictive
labour regulations Labour laws (also known as labor laws or employment laws) are those that mediate the relationship between workers, employing entities, trade unions, and the government. Collective labour law relates to the tripartite relationship between employee, ...
have contributed to the unemployment malaise. Along with many African nations, South Africa has been experiencing a brain drain in the past 20 years and is almost certainly detrimental for the wellbeing of those reliant on the healthcare infrastructure. The skills drain in South Africa tends to demonstrate racial contours given the skills distribution legacy of South Africa and has thus resulted in large white South African communities abroad. However, the statistics which purport to show a brain drain are disputed and also do not account for
repatriation Repatriation is the process of returning a thing or a person to its country of origin or citizenship. The term may refer to non-human entities, such as converting a foreign currency into the currency of one's own country, as well as to the pro ...
and expiry of foreign work contracts. According to several surveys, there was a reverse in brain drain following the global financial crisis of 2007–2008 and expiration of foreign work contracts. In the first quarter of 2011, confidence levels for graduate professionals were recorded at a level of 84% in a Professional Provident Society survey. Illegal immigrants are involved in informal trading. Many immigrants to South Africa continue to live in poor conditions, and the immigration policy has become increasingly restrictive since 1994. Human Rights Watch reported in August 2019 that foreign national truck drivers were being subjected to deadly attacks carried out by South African truck drivers. The organization urged the South African government to take immediate actions ensuring the safety of the foreign national truck drivers putting up with violence, harassment, intimidation, stoning, bombing, and shooting, by local truck drivers in the country.


Tourism


Infrastructure


Energy

South Africa has a very large energy sector and is currently the only country on the African continent that possesses a Nuclear power plant. The country is also the largest producer of electricity in Africa and 21 largest in the world. South Africa produces in excess of 248 million tonnes of coal and consumes almost three-quarters of that domestically. Around 77% of South Africa's energy needs are directly derived from coal and 92% of coal consumed on the African continent is mined in South Africa. Despite being the largest electricity producer of Africa, the country faces an energy crisis which causes a drastic effect on the country's economy, most notability manifesting in the form of successive rounds of Loadshedding, is an ongoing period of widespread national level rolling blackouts as state-owned power company Eskom fails to meet South Africa's energy demand, It began in the later months of 2007 and continues to this day.


Science and technology

Several important scientific and technological developments have originated in South Africa. South Africa was ranked 61st in the
Global Innovation Index The Global Innovation Index is an annual ranking of countries by their capacity for, and success in, innovation, published by the World Intellectual Property Organization. It was started in 2007 by INSEAD and ''World Business'', a British m ...
in 2021, up from 63rd in 2019. The first human-to-human heart transplant was performed by cardiac surgeon Christiaan Barnard at Groote Schuur Hospital in December 1967; Max Theiler developed a vaccine against yellow fever,
Allan MacLeod Cormack Allan MacLeod Cormack (February 23, 1924 – May 7, 1998) was a South African American physicist who won the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (along with Godfrey Hounsfield) for his work on X-ray computed tomography (CT). Early life an ...
pioneered X-ray computed tomography ( CT scan); and
Aaron Klug Sir Aaron Klug (11 August 1926 – 20 November 2018) was a British biophysicist and chemist. He was a winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his development of crystallographic electron microscopy and his structural elucidation of bi ...
developed crystallographic electron microscopy techniques. Cormack and Klug received
Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
s for their work. Sydney Brenner won most recently, in 2002, for his pioneering work in molecular biology.
Mark Shuttleworth Mark Richard Shuttleworth (born 18 September 1973) is a South African and British entrepreneur who is the founder and CEO of Canonical, the company behind the development of the Linux-based Ubuntu operating system. In 2002, Shuttleworth became ...
founded an early Internet security company
Thawte Thawte Consulting (pronounced "thought") is a certificate authority (CA) for X.509 certificates. Thawte was founded in 1995 by Mark Shuttleworth in South Africa. As of December 30, 2016, its then-parent company, Symantec Group, was collectively ...
, that was subsequently bought out by world leader Verisign. It is the expressed objective of the government to transition the economy to be more reliant on high technology, based on the realisation that South Africa cannot compete with Far Eastern economies in manufacturing, nor can the republic rely on its mineral wealth in perpetuity. South Africa has cultivated a burgeoning astronomy community. It hosts the
Southern African Large Telescope The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) is a 10-metre class optical telescope designed mainly for spectroscopy. It consists of 91 hexagonal mirror segments each with a 1-metre inscribed diameter, resulting in a total hexagonal mirror of 11.1 ...
, the largest optical telescope in the Southern Hemisphere. South Africa is currently building the Karoo Array Telescope as a pathfinder for the €1.5 billion Square Kilometre Array project.


Transports

Different methods of
transport in South Africa Different methods of transportation in South Africa include roads, railways, airports, water, and pipelines for petroleum oil. The majority of people in South Africa use informal minibus taxis as their main mode of transport. BRT has been im ...
include roads, railways, airports, water, and pipelines for petroleum oil. The majority of people in South Africa use informal minibus taxis as their main mode of transport. Bus rapid transit has been implemented in some cities in an attempt to provide more formalised and safer public transport services. These systems have been widely criticised because of their large capital and operating costs. South Africa has many major ports including Cape Town, Durban, and Port Elizabeth that allow ships and other boats to pass through, some carrying passengers and some carrying petroleum tankers.


Water supply and sanitation

Two distinctive features of the South African water sector are the policy of free basic water and the existence of water boards, which are bulk water supply agencies that operate pipelines and sell water from reservoirs to municipalities. These features have led to significant problems concerning the financial sustainability of service providers, leading to a lack of attention to maintenance. Following the end of apartheid, the country had made improvements in the levels of access to water as those with access increased from 66% to 79% from 1990 to 2010. WHO/ UNICEF: Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitationbr>Data table South Africa
, 2010. Retrieved 3 November 2012
Sanitation access increased from 71% to 79% during the same period. However, water supply and sanitation has come under increasing pressure in recent years despite a commitment made by the government to improve service standards and provide investment subsidies to the water industry. The eastern parts of South Africa suffer from periodic droughts linked to the El Niño weather phenomenon. In early 2018, Cape Town, which has different weather patterns to the rest of the country, faced a water crisis as the city's water supply was predicted to run dry before the end of June. Water-saving measures were in effect that required each citizen to use less than per day. Cape Town rejected an offer from Israel to help it build desalination plants.


Culture

The South African black majority still has a substantial number of rural inhabitants who lead largely impoverished lives. It is among these people that cultural traditions survive most strongly; as blacks have become increasingly urbanised and
Westernised Westernization (or Westernisation), also Europeanisation or occidentalization (from the ''Occident''), is a process whereby societies come under or adopt Western culture in areas such as industry, technology, science, education, politics, econo ...
, aspects of traditional culture have declined. Members of the middle class, who are predominantly white but whose ranks include growing numbers of Black, Coloured and Indian people, have lifestyles similar in many respects to that of people found in Western Europe, North America and Australasia.


Arts

South African art South African art is the visual art produced by the people inhabiting the territory occupied by the modern country of South Africa. The oldest art objects in the world were discovered in a South African cave. Archaeologists have discovered two s ...
includes the oldest art objects in the world, which were discovered in a South African cave and dated from roughly 75,000 years ago. The scattered tribes of the Khoisan peoples moving into South Africa from around 10,000 BC had their own fluent art styles seen today in a multitude of cave paintings. They were superseded by the Bantu/Nguni peoples with their own vocabularies of art forms. Forms of art evolved in the mines and townships: a dynamic art using everything from plastic strips to bicycle spokes. The Dutch-influenced folk art of the Afrikaner and the urban white artists, earnestly following changing European traditions from the 1850s onwards, also contributed to this eclectic mix which continues to evolve to this day.


Popular culture

The South African media sector is large, and South Africa is one of Africa's major media centres. While the many broadcasters and publications reflect the diversity of the population as a whole, the most commonly used language is English. However, all ten other official languages are represented to some extent or another. There is great diversity in
South African music South Africa is well known for its distinct musical styles which have played a huge role towards the country's society. The music of South Africa is very diverse with a wide variety of genres such as Marabi, Kwaito, house music, Isicathamiya, G ...
. Black musicians have developed a unique style called Kwaito, that is said to have taken over radio, television, and magazines. Of note is Brenda Fassie, who launched to fame with her song " Weekend Special", which was sung in English. More famous traditional musicians include Ladysmith Black Mambazo, while the
Soweto String Quartet The Soweto String Quartet is a string quartet from Soweto in South Africa composed of Reuben Khemese, Makhosini Mnguni, Sandile Khemese and Thami Khemese. Their music is a fusion of the "dance rhythms of Kwela, the syncopated guitars of Mbaqanga ...
performs classical music with an African flavour. South Africa has produced world-famous jazz musicians, notably Hugh Masekela, Jonas Gwangwa, Abdullah Ibrahim, Miriam Makeba, Jonathan Butler,
Chris McGregor Christopher McGregor (24 December 1936 – 26 May 1990) was a South African jazz pianist, bandleader and composer born in Somerset West, South Africa. Early influences McGregor grew up in the then Transkei (now part of the Eastern Cape Provin ...
, and Sathima Bea Benjamin. Afrikaans music covers multiple genres, such as the contemporary
Steve Hofmeyr Steve Hofmeyr (born 29 August 1964) is a South African singer, songwriter, writer, actor and former TV presenter. Personal life Hofmeyr married actress Natasha Sutherland, whom he had met on the set of ''Egoli: Place of Gold'' in 1998. They had ...
, the punk rock band
Fokofpolisiekar Fokofpolisiekar (, ''Fuckoffpolicecar'') is an Afrikaans alternative rock band from Bellville, near Cape Town, South Africa. Due to the obscenity in the name, they are also commonly known simply as Polisiekar or FPK. Band history The band w ...
, and the singer-songwriter
Jeremy Loops Jeremy Thomas Hewitt (born March 4, 1984) known by his stage name Jeremy Loops, is a South African singer, songwriter, and record producer. In 2011, Loops released his self-titled EP. His debut album ''Trading Change'' was released March 2014 ...
. South African popular musicians that have found international success include Manfred Mann, Johnny Clegg, rap-rave duo Die Antwoord, and rock band Seether. Although few South African film productions are known outside South Africa, many foreign films have been produced about South Africa. Arguably, the most high-profile film portraying South Africa in recent years was ''
District 9 ''District 9'' is a 2009 science fiction mockumentary film directed by Neill Blomkamp in his feature film debut, written by Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell, and produced by Peter Jackson and Carolynne Cunningham. It is a co-production of New ...
'' and its upcoming sequel. Other notable exceptions are the film , which won the Academy Award for Foreign Language Film at the 78th Academy Awards in 2006, as well as , which won the Golden Bear at the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival. In 2015, the
Oliver Hermanus Oliver Hermanus (born 26 May 1983) is a South African film director and writer.
"Oliver Hermanus." IMDb: The Internet Movie Dat ...
film The Endless River (film), ''The Endless River'' became the first South African film selected for the Venice Film Festival.


Literature

South African literature South African literature is the literature of South Africa, which has 11 national languages: Afrikaans, English, Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho, Pedi, Tswana, Venda, Swazi, Tsonga and Ndebele. Overview Elleke Boehmer (cf. Cullhed, 2006: 79) writes, "N ...
emerged from a unique social and political history. One of the first well known novels written by a black author in an African language was Solomon Thekiso Plaatje's ''
Mhudi ''Mhudi: An Epic of South African Native Life a Hundred Years Ago'' is a South African novel by Sol Plaatje first published in 1930, and one of the first published African novels by a black African to be published in English. The novel was republ ...
'', written in 1930. During the 1950s, '' Drum'' magazine became a hotbed of political satire, fiction, and essays, giving a voice to the urban black culture. Notable white South African authors include
Alan Paton Alan Stewart Paton (11 January 1903 – 12 April 1988) was a South African writer and anti-apartheid activist. His works include the novels '' Cry, the Beloved Country'' and '' Too Late the Phalarope''. Family Paton was born in Pietermaritzbu ...
, who published the novel ''
Cry, the Beloved Country ''Cry, the Beloved Country'' is a 1948 novel by South African writer Alan Paton. Set in the prelude to apartheid in South Africa, it follows a black village priest and a white farmer who must deal with news of a murder. American publisher Benn ...
'' in 1948. Nadine Gordimer became the first South African to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1991.
J.M. Coetzee John Maxwell Coetzee OMG (born 9 February 1940) is a South African–Australian novelist, essayist, linguist, translator and recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is one of the most critically acclaimed and decorated authors in ...
won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003. When awarding the prize, the Swedish Academy stated that Coetzee "in innumerable guises portrays the surprising involvement of the outsider." The plays of Athol Fugard have been regularly premiered in fringe theatres in South Africa, London ( Royal Court Theatre) and New York. Olive Schreiner's ''
The Story of an African Farm ''The Story of an African Farm'' (published in 1883 under the pseudonym Ralph Iron) was South African author Olive Schreiner's first published novel. It was an immediate success and has become recognised as one of the first feminist novels. B ...
'' (1883) was a revelation in Victorian literature: it is heralded by many as introducing feminism into the novel form. Breyten Breytenbach was jailed for his involvement with the guerrilla movement against apartheid. André Brink was the first Afrikaner writer to be
banned A ban is a formal or informal prohibition of something. Bans are formed for the prohibition of activities within a certain political territory. Some bans in commerce are referred to as embargoes. ''Ban'' is also used as a verb similar in meanin ...
by the government after he released the novel '' A Dry White Season''.


Cuisine

The cuisine of South Africa is immensely diverse, and foods from a many different cultures and backgrounds are enjoyed by all communities, and especially marketed to tourists who wish to sample the large variety available. The cuisine is mostly meat-based and has spawned the distinctively South African social gathering known as the , a variation of the barbecue. South Africa has also developed into a major wine producer, with some of the best vineyards lying in valleys around Stellenbosch, Franschhoek, Paarl and
Barrydale Barrydale is a village located on the border of the Overberg and Klein Karoo regions of the Western Cape Province in South Africa. It was named after Joseph Barry, a well known merchant of the 19th century. It is situated at the northern end of th ...
.


Sports

South Africa's most popular sports are association football, rugby union and cricket. Other sports with significant support are swimming, athletics, golf, boxing, tennis,
ringball Ringball is a traditional South African sport that stems from basketball and has been played since 1907. The sport is now promoted in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho, India, and Mauritius to establish Ringball as an international spor ...
,
field hockey Field hockey is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with ten outfield players and a goalkeeper. Teams must drive a round hockey ball by hitting it with a hockey stick towards the rival team's shooting ...
, surfing and netball. Although football (soccer) commands the greatest following among the youth, other sports like basketball, judo, softball and skateboarding are becoming increasingly popular amongst the populace. Association football is the most popular sport in South Africa. Footballers who have played for major foreign clubs include Steven Pienaar,
Lucas Radebe Lucas Valeriu Ntuba Radebe OIS (born 12 April 1969) is a South African former professional footballer who played as a centre back. He began playing in South Africa with Kaizer Chiefs, before transferring to Leeds United, where he played 256 m ...
and
Philemon Masinga Philemon Raul Masinga (28 June 1969 – 13 January 2019) was a South African professional footballer and manager who played as a striker from 1990 to 2002. He played in the English Premier League for Leeds United, and Italian Serie A for Saler ...
, Benni McCarthy,
Aaron Mokoena Teboho Aaron Mokoena (born 25 November 1980), known as Aaron Mokoena, is a South African former footballer. He is currently the assistant coach of Cape Town City. Club career Early career Mokoena was born in Boipatong. He moved to Bayer Lever ...
, and
Delron Buckley Delron Sebastian Buckley (born 7 December 1977) is a South African former professional footballer. His preferred position was the left wing although he could also play as a striker. In September 2021, he was appointed Head Coach of the Universi ...
. South Africa hosted the 2010 FIFA World Cup, and FIFA president Sepp Blatter awarded South Africa a grade 9 out of 10 for successfully hosting the event. Player Benni McCarthy is also a first-team coach for the English football club Manchester United. Famous boxing personalities include Baby Jake
Jacob Matlala Jacob "Baby Jake" Matlala (1 August 1962 – 7 December 2013) was a South African boxer and junior flyweight champion from Meadowlands, Johannesburg. He won 4 world championship titles. In 2004, Matlala was voted #72 in the " 100 Greatest Sou ...
,
Vuyani Bungu Vuyani Bungu (born 26 February 1967) is a South African former professional boxer who competed from 1987 to 2005. He held the IBF junior-featherweight title from 1994 to 1999, and the IBO featherweight title from 2004 to 2005. Professiona ...
,
Welcome Ncita Welcome Ncita (born 21 October 1965) is a retired professional boxer and former IBF Super Bantamweight Champion. Known as "The Hawk", Ncita turned professional in 1984 and in 1990 captured the International Boxing Federation Super Bantamweight T ...
, Dingaan Thobela, Corrie Sanders, Gerrie Coetzee and Brian Mitchell. Durban surfer
Jordy Smith Jordan Michael "Jordy" Smith (born 11 February 1988) is a South African professional surfer, competing on the World championship tour surfing (WCT). In 2007 Smith won surfing's World Qualifying Series, the second-tier tour which leads to qualif ...
won the 2010 Billabong J-Bay Open making him the highest ranked surfer in the world. South Africa produced Formula One motor racing's 1979 world champion Jody Scheckter. Famous active cricket players include Kagiso Rabada, David Miller,
Keshav Maharaj Keshav Atmanand Maharaj (born 7 February 1990) is a South African professional cricketer who plays for the South Africa national team in Tests, One Day International (ODI) and Twenty20 International (T20I) cricket. He is currently the vice-cap ...
, Anrich Nortje,
Reeza Hendricks Reeza Raphael Hendricks (born 14 August 1989) is a South African cricketer who plays for Gauteng and for the South Africa national cricket team. He is a right-handed opening batsman. He made his international debut for South Africa in November ...
and
Rilee Rossouw Rilee Roscoe Rossouw (born 9 October 1989) is a South African cricketer who played for South Africa between 2014 and 2016, before making a return to international cricket in July 2022. In South Africa he played domestic cricket for Knights and ...
; some also participate in the Indian Premier League. South Africa has produced numerous world class rugby players, including Francois Pienaar, Joost van der Westhuizen, Danie Craven, Frik du Preez, Naas Botha, and Bryan Habana. South Africa has won the Rugby World Cup three times, tying New Zealand for the most Rugby World Cup wins. South Africa first won the 1995 Rugby World Cup, which it hosted. They went on to win the tournament again in 2007 and in 2019. It followed the 1995 Rugby World Cup by hosting the
1996 African Cup of Nations The 1996 African Cup of Nations was the 20th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations, the football championship of Africa ( CAF). It was hosted by South Africa, who replaced original hosts Kenya. The field expanded for the first time to 16 teams, s ...
, with the national team
Bafana Bafana The South Africa national soccer team represents South Africa in men's international soccer and it is run by the South African Football Association, the governing body for Soccer in South Africa. The team's nickname is Bafana Bafana (The Boys/G ...
going on to win the tournament. In 2022, the women's team also won the Women's Africa Cup of Nations, beating
Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to A ...
2–1 in
the final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...
. It also hosted the
2003 Cricket World Cup The 2003 ICC Cricket World Cup was the eighth Cricket World Cup, organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC). It was co-hosted by South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya from 9 February to 23 March 2003. This edition of the World Cup was the f ...
, the 2007 World Twenty20 Championship. South Africa's national cricket team, the Proteas, have also won the inaugural edition of the
1998 ICC KnockOut Trophy The 1998 ICC Champions trophy (officially known as Wills International Cup) was a One Day International cricket tournament held in Bangladesh. It was the first tournament apart from the World Cups to involve all test playing nations. New Zealand ...
by defeating West Indies in the final. South Africa's national blind cricket team also went on to win the inaugural edition of the Blind Cricket World Cup in 1998. In 2004, the swimming team of Roland Schoeman, Lyndon Ferns,
Darian Townsend Darian Roy Townsend (born 28 August 1984) is a competition swimmer and Olympic gold medalist who competed for South Africa. He became a U.S. citizen during the summer of 2014, and has subsequently represented the United States in international ...
and
Ryk Neethling Ryk Neethling OIS (born 17 November 1977) is a South African businessman who rose to prominence as the three-times World Champion and four-times World Record Breaking Olympic swimming champion. He is known as one of the most accomplished swim ...
won the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Athens, simultaneously breaking the world record in the 4×100
Freestyle Relay Freestyle is a category of swimming competition, defined by the rules of the International Swimming Federation (FINA), in which competitors are subject to a few limited restrictions on their swimming stroke. Freestyle races are the most commo ...
.
Penny Heyns Penelope ("Penny") Heyns OIS (born 8 November 1974) is a South African former swimmer, who is best known for being the only woman in the history of the Olympic Games to have won both the 100 m and 200 m breaststroke events – at the 1996 Atlan ...
won Olympic Gold in the 1996
Atlanta Olympic Games The 1996 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXVI Olympiad, also known as Atlanta 1996 and commonly referred to as the Centennial Olympic Games) were an international multi-sport event held from July 19 to August 4, 1996, in Atlanta ...
, and more recently, swimmers
Tatjana Schoenmaker Tatjana Schoenmaker (born 9 July 1997) is a South African swimmer specialising in breaststroke events. She won the gold medal and set the world record in the 200-metre breaststroke and also won the silver medal in the 100-metre breaststroke at ...
and
Lara van Niekerk Lara van Niekerk (born 13 May 2003) is a South African competitive Swimming (sport), swimmer. She is the current List of African records in swimming, African, List of Commonwealth records in swimming, Commonwealth, and List of South African reco ...
have both broken world records and won gold medals at the Olympic and Commonwealth Games. In 2012, Oscar Pistorius became the first double amputee sprinter to compete at the Olympic Games in London. In golf, Gary Player is generally regarded as one of the greatest golfers of all time, having won the Career Grand Slam, one of five golfers to have done so. Other South African golfers to have won major tournaments include Bobby Locke, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, Tim Clark, Trevor Immelman, Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel.


See also

*
Outline of South Africa The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to South Africa: South Africa – A sovereign country located at the southern tip of Africa. South Africa's coast stretches 2,798 kilometres and borders both the ...


References


Further reading

* ''A History of South Africa, Third Edition''. Leonard Thompson. Yale University Press. 2001. 384 pages. . * ''Economic Analysis and Policy Formulation for Post-Apartheid South Africa: Mission Report, Aug. 1991''. International Development Research Centre. IDRC Canada, 1991. vi, 46 p. Without ISBN. * ''Emerging Johannesburg: Perspectives on the Postapartheid City''. Richard Tomlinson, et al. 2003. 336 pages. . * ''Making of Modern South Africa: Conquest, Segregation and Apartheid''. Nigel Worden. 2000. 194 pages. . * ''South Africa: A Narrative History''. Frank Welsh. Kodansha America. 1999. 606 pages. . * ''South Africa in Contemporary Times''. Godfrey Mwakikagile. New Africa Press. 2008. 260 pages. . * ''The Atlas of Changing South Africa''. A. J. Christopher. 2000. 216 pages. . * ''The Politics of the New South Africa''. Heather Deegan. 2000. 256 pages. . * ''Twentieth-Century South Africa''. William Beinart
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...
2001, 414 pages, .


External links


Government of South Africa

South Africa
'' The World Factbook''. Central Intelligence Agency.
South Africa
from ''UCB Libraries GovPubs''
South Africa
from the
BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadc ...
* * {{Authority control South Africa BRICS nations Countries in Africa English-speaking countries and territories G20 nations Member states of the African Union Member states of the Commonwealth of Nations Member states of the United Nations Newly industrializing countries Republics in the Commonwealth of Nations Southern African countries States and territories established in 1910