The Population Registration Act of 1950 required that each inhabitant of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

be classified and registered in accordance with their racial characteristics as part of the system of

apartheid Apartheid ( , especially South African English: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...

. Social rights, political rights, educational opportunities, and economic status were largely determined by the group to which an individual belonged. There were three basic racial classifications under the law:

Black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

and

Coloured Coloureds () are multiracial people in South Africa, Namibia and, to a smaller extent, Zimbabwe and Zambia. Their ancestry descends from the interracial mixing that occurred between Europeans, Africans and Asians. Interracial mixing in South ...

(mixed). Indians (that is, South Asians from the former

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...

, and their descendants) were later added as a separate classification as they were seen as having "no historical right to the country". An ''Office for Race Classification'' was set up to overview the classification process. Classification into groups was carried out using criteria such as outer appearance, general acceptance and social standing. For example, it defined a "white person" as one who "in appearance is obviously a white person who is generally not accepted as a coloured person, or is generally accepted as a white person and is not in appearance obviously a white person." Because some aspects of the profile were of a social nature, reclassification was not uncommon, and a board was established to conduct that process. The following criteria were used for separating the coloured people from the white people: * Characteristics of the person's head hair * Characteristics of the person's other hair * Skin colour * Facial features * Home language and especially the knowledge of Afrikaans * Area where the person lives, the person's friends and acquaintances * Employment * Socioeconomic status * Eating and drinking habits This law worked in tandem with other laws passed as part of the apartheid system. Under the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949, it was illegal for a white person to marry a person of another race. With the enactment of the Immorality Amendment Act of 1950, it also became a crime for a white person and a person of another race to have sexual intercourse. Under the act, as amended, Coloureds and Indians were formally classified into various subgroups, including

Cape Coloured Cape Coloureds () are a South African group of Coloured people who are from the Cape region in South Africa which consists of the Western Cape, Northern Cape and the Eastern Cape. Their ancestry comes from the interracial mixing between th ...

, Malay, Griqua, Chinese, Indian, ''Other Asian'' and ''Other Coloured''. The South African Parliament repealed the act on 17 June 1991. However, the racial categories defined in the act remain ingrained in South African culture and they still form the basis of some official policies and statistics aimed at redressing past economic imbalances ( Black Economic Empowerment and Employment Equity).

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* {{Apartheid legislation navbox Apartheid laws in South Africa 1950 in South African law

See also

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