South Africa
Glorious beaches, gracious winelands, cosmopolitan cities, sanctuaries teeming with game. South Africa offers the visitor an endless range of excellent options.
Truly cosmopolitan, South Africans are often described as 'the rainbow nation'. South Africa is a vast country (about five times larger than the United Kingdom) which offers a great variety of holiday options and endless things to see and do.
Among the most popular excursions are visits to the country's many superb national parks and game reserves, including the world-renowned Kruger National Park. Cape Town with its familiar landmark, Table Mountain, remains a favourite destination. The picturesque wine estates and quality wines produced there attract great interest. Durban with its year-round sub-tropical climate and popular beaches has rightfully been called the 'Holiday City'.
Any visitor to Johannesburg should include a visit to Gold Reef City, a re-creation of historical city of old Johannesburg while to the north west of the 'city of gold' lies Sun City, South Africa's answer to Las Vegas. Magnificent mountain scenery, including the famed Drakensberg and the awe-inspring Blyde River Canyon, competes with the semi-desert of the Karoo and ancient forests of Tsitsikamma and Knysna for visitors' attention.
South Africa's sunny climate and outdoor lifestyle has produced a very sport conscious nation and visitors may participate in, or watch, virtually any sport from polo to golf, fishing to surfing, soccer to basketball, while a host of high-adrenalin activities are available from bungee jumping to white-river rafting.
Population
The official figure derived from the last census is 41 244 500
Language
South Africa has 11 official languages, with English being the most widely spoken
Capital City
Pretoria and Cape Town share the seat of government, while Bloemfontein is the judicial capital and Johannesburg the centre of commerce.
South Africa is a large country sharing borders with Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Swaziland and Lesotho.
The country has a long coastline with a coastal plain region which receives much of the rainfall. The central highland area has an elevation of about 2 000m and is reached from the west across a large semi-desert region or through the steep escarpment of the Drakensberg mountain range from the south and east. Beyond the relatively arid plateau are the lower regions of the north and east. The many mountain ranges which cross the country are the sources of some of the largest perennial rivers in Africa.
The country can be divided into three major parts: the vast interior plateau (the Highveld), the Great Escarpment at its edge (the Kalahari Basin), and a narrow coastal plain (the Lowveld).
The people of South African are made up of many diverse cultures, hence its nickname, the "Rainbow Nation". Most sectors of the community are well educated and there is a thriving local arts and culture scene. The mingling and melding in South Africa's urban areas means that old cultures are fading and new synchretisms are emerging, but traditional black cultures are still strong in much of the countryside.
The traditional cultures are based on beliefs in a masculine deity, ancestral spirits and supernatural forces. Polygamy is permitted and a bride-price, called lobola (where the groom's family reimburse the bride's family for the loss of their daughter) is usually paid. Cattle play an important part in many cultures, as symbols of wealth and as sacrificial animals.
The art of South Africa's indigenous populations may be one of the few ways to connect with lost cultures. Rock and cave paintings by the San (Bushmen), some of which date back 26 000 years, fall into this category. In other cases, such as the elaborate 'coded' beadwork of the Zulus, traditional art has been adapted to survive in different circumstances. Zulu is one of the strongest surviving black cultures and massed Zulu singing at Inkatha Freedom Party demonstrations is a powerful expression of this ancient culture. The Xhosa also have a strong presence; they are known as the red people because of the red-dyed clothing worn by most adults. The Ndebele are a related group, who live in the Northern Transvaal in strikingly painted houses.
Religion
Christianity, mainly Protestant, but there are large Jewish, Moslem and Hindu communities in some areas. Most people in country areas also follow African traditional ceremonies in addition to other religious practices.
The constitution provides for a multi-party democracy. Headed by the president, Jacob Zuma, the executive body is assisted by the cabinet.
Although Khoisan tribes of nomadic hunters, gatherers and pastoralists have lived in southern Africa for around 40 000 years, they didn't reach the Cape of Good Hope until about 2 000 years ago. By the 15th century most arable land had been settled by encroaching Bantu pastoral tribes.
Southern Africa became a popular stop for European sea crews after Vasco de Gama opened the Cape of Good Hope spice route in 1498, and, by the mid-17th century, scurvy and shipwreck had induced Dutch traders to opt for a permanent settlement in Table Bay on the site of present day Cape Town. The mostly Dutch burghers pushed slowly north, decimating the Khoisan with violence and disease as they went.
Towards the end of the 18th century and with Dutch power fading,turned its attention to South Africa. It was hoped that British settlers would inhabit a buffer zone between skirmishing pastoral Boers and Xhosa, but most of the British immigrant families retreated to town, entrenching the rural/urban divide that is evident in white South Africa even today.
Although slavery was abolished in 1833, black/white division of labour served the whites too well for any real attempt to be made to efface it.
Upheaval in black southern Africa wasn't only generated by the white invaders. Difaqane was the name given to a terror campaign masterminded by the Zulu chief, Shaka. This wave of disruption through southern Africa wiped out some tribes completely, enslaved others and sent the lucky ones running.
Into this chaos disgruntled Boers marched on their Great Trek away from British rule. Most of the pastures they trekked through were deserted or inhabited by traumatised refugees; they were easily turned into cattle runs. The Zulus were no pushovers, however. They put up strong and bloody resistance to the Boers before eventually ceding to superior firepower. Boer republics were established in the interior, and were annexed one-by-one by Britain in a mixture of treaties, diplomacy and violence through the middle part of the 19th century. Just as the Union Jack looked likely to fly from Cairo to the Cape, diamonds were discovered in Kimberley, and the Dutch resistance became suddenly stronger.
The First Anglo-Boer War ended in a crushing Boer victory and the establishment of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek. The British backed off, until a huge reef of gold was discovered around Johannesburg, upon which they marched in again for the Second Anglo-Boer War. By 1902 the Boers had exhausted their conventional resources and resorted to commando-style guerrilla raids, denying the British control of the countryside. The British quashed resistance with disproportionate reprisals: if a railway line was blown up, the nearest farmhouse was destroyed; if a shot was fired from a farm, the house was burnt down, the crops destroyed and the animals killed. The women and children from the farms were collected and taken to concentration camps, a British invention, where 26 000 died of disease and neglect. The Boers were compelled to sign an ignominious and bitter peace.
Soon after the Union of South Africa was established in 1910, a barrage of legislation was passed restricting black rights and laying the foundations for apartheid. After a last flutter with military rebellion during WWI, the Afrikaners got on with the business of controlling South Africa politically. In 1948 elections the Afrikaner-dominated and ultra-right National Party took the reins and entrenched apartheid. Every individual was classified by race, and race determined where you could live, work, pray and learn. Irrespective of birthright, blacks were divided into one of ten tribal groups, forcibly dispossessed and relocated to rural backwaters, the so-called Homelands. The plan was to restrict blacks to Homelands that were, according to the propaganda, to become self-sufficient, self-governing states. In reality, these lands had virtually no infrastructure, no industry and were therefore incapable of producing sufficient food for the black population. There was intense, widespread suffering and many families returned to squalid squatter camps in the cities from which they had been evicted.
Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi was pivotal in the Inkatha movement, a failed attempt to unite Homeland leaders. Black resistance developed in the form of strikes, acts of public disobedience and protest marches, and was supported by international opinion from the early 1960s after 69 protesters were killed in Sharpeville and African National Congress (ANC) leaders, including Nelson Mandela, were jailed.
After withdrawing from the British Commonwealth in 1961, South Africa became increasingly isolated. Paranoia developed through the 1960s and 70s, as the last European powers withdrew from Africa and black, often socialist, states formed around South Africa's northern borders. South Africa's military responses ranged from limited strikes (Mozambique, Lesotho) to full-scale assault (Angola, Namibia). When Cuba intervened in Angola in 1988, war looked much less attractive. As the spirit of Gorbachev-style detente permeated southern Africa, Cuba pulled out of Angola, Namibia became independent and a stable peace was finally brokered in 1990.
The domestic situation was far from resolved. Violent responses to black protests increased commitment to a revolutionary struggle and the United Nations finally imposed economic and political sanctions. But in the mid-1980s, black-on-black violence in the townships exploded. Although bitter lines were drawn between the Xhosa-based ANC and the Zulu-dominated Inkatha movement, such distinctions are too simplistic in the context of the massive economic and social deprivation of black South Africa. There were clashes between political rivals, tribal enemies, opportunistic gangsters, and between those who lived in the huge migrant-workers' hostels and their township neighbours. In 1989 when economic sanctions began to bite, the Rand collapsed and reformist FW De Klerk came to power replacing the hard-liner, PW Botha. Virtually all apartheid regulations were repealed, political prisoners were released and negotiations began on forming a multiracial government. Free elections in 1994 resulted in a decisive victory for the ANC and Nelson Mandela became president. De Klerk's National Party won just over 20% of the vote, and the Inkatha Freedom Party won 10.5%. South Africa rejoined the British Commonwealth a few months later.
Despite the scars of the past and the enormous problems ahead, South Africa today is immeasurably more optimistic and relaxed than it was a few years ago.
First and foremost, South Africa is a mineral exporting country with a particular emphasis on precious stones and metals. There are also huge deposits of coal, iron ore, uranium and other minerals used by industry. The local industrial complex is dominated by the processing of minerals into other products such as steel or the production of oil from natural gas and coal. As a country largely dependent on oil imports, South Africa has become a world leader in oil-from-coal technology.
There is a large manufacturing sector but the most significant sector outside of mining is agriculture. South Africa produces a large share of the subcontinents food requirements and still has a surplus of grains, fruit, meat and fish to supply the international export trade. Wine is a more specialised product for which the country is world-famous. Tourism is a major growth industry.