The South African diaspora consists of

South Africa 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 and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring count ...

n emigrants and their descendants living outside South Africa. The largest concentrations of South African emigrants are to be found in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, followed by Australia, the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 List of islands of New Zealand, smaller islands. It is the ...

and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...

. At the time of the

2001 UK Census A nationwide census, known as Census 2001, was conducted in the United Kingdom on Sunday, 29 April 2001. This was the 20th UK census and recorded a resident population of 58,789,194. The 2001 UK census was organised by the Office for National ...

, some 141,405 South-African born people were present in the UK. In Australia, there were 145,683 South African-born people living in the country at the moment of the 2011 Census, having an increase compared with those 78,444 recorded by the 2001

Census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses in ...

. The 2000 United States Census identified 68,290 South African-born people. According to the most recent data compiled by Statistics South Africa, between 2006 and 2016 the most popular overseas destinations for South African émigrés were: 1. Australia (26.0%), 2.

(25.0%), 3.

(13.4%), 4.

(9.5%), 5.

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

(6.0%), 6.

American Samoa American Samoa ( sm, Amerika Sāmoa, ; also ' or ') is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the South Pacific Ocean, southeast of the island country of Samoa. Its location is centered on . It is east of the Internation ...

(

United States territory In the United States, a territory is any extent of region under the sovereign jurisdiction of the federal government of the United States, including all waters (around islands or continental tracts). The United States asserts sovereign rights for ...

) (4.4%), 7.

United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia ( The Middle East). It is located at ...

(4.2%), 8.

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

(4.0%), 9.

(3.0%), and 10. China (2.0%). A number of

White South Africans White South Africans generally refers to South Africans of European descent. In linguistic, cultural, and historical terms, they are generally divided into the Afrikaans-speaking descendants of the Dutch East India Company's original settl ...

, most of them skilled, left the country in the years preceding and following the 1994 election that represented the end of the

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

era. As a result the diaspora mainly consists of white South African emigrants of British, Jewish (mostly via Latvia, Germany and Lithuanian ancestry) and to a lesser extent, Afrikaner origin. A minority of English South Africans have moved to Great Britain (often through the UK ancestry visa), due to socioeconomic concerns such as South Africa's high crime rate in the 1990s and early 2000s, a volatile South African Rand, economic mismanagement during the

Jacob Zuma Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma (; born 12 April 1942) is a South African politician who served as the fourth president of South Africa from 2009 to 2018. He is also referred to by his initials JZ and clan name Msholozi, and was a former anti-apart ...

presidency and changes in the South African economy. Afrikaners and Black South Africans generally have much lower emigration rates than their English and Jewish counterparts. South Africans have largely settled in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States and to a lesser extent, Zimbabwe, Ireland, the UAE, Israel (mostly those of Jewish faith) and Portugal.https://samponline.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Acrobat58.pdf

External links

* Zimbabwean diaspora * South Africans in the United Kingdom
South African Expat Counselling

References

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