South Africa, the southernmost country in Africa, bordered on the north by Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Swaziland; on the east and south by the Indian Ocean; and on the west by the Atlantic Ocean. Lesotho forms an enclave in the northeastern part of the country.
South Africa has a diverse and dramatic landscape. Most of the interior is covered by high plateaus, which are separated from the country’s long coastline by chains of tall mountains. South Africa is rich in minerals such as gold and diamonds, and its industrial base grew up around the mining industry.
Population: 45 000 000. Black Africans comprise three quarters of South Africa’s population, and whites, Coloureds (people of mixed race), and Asians (mainly Indians) make up the remainder. Among the black population there are numerous ethnic groups and 11 official languages. Until recently, whites dominated the nonwhite majority population under the political system of racial segregation known as apartheid. Apartheid ended in the early 1990s, but South Africa is still recovering from the racial inequalities in political power, opportunity, and lifestyle. The end of apartheid led to the lifting of trade sanctions against South Africa imposed by the international community. It also led to a total reorganization of the government, which since 1994 has been a nonracial democracy based on majority rule.
South Africa is divided into nine provinces. These provinces are Gauteng, Northern Province, Mpumalanga, North-West Province, Free State, Eastern Cape, Northern Cape, Western Cape, and KwaZulu-Natal. The country has three capitals: Cape Town is the legislative capital; Pretoria, the executive capital; and Bloemfontein, the judicial capital.
The discerning traveller visiting Cape Town will find the following site very inforative: Cape Town Travel Guide
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Travel guide, information, accommodation and tours in Cape Town
and the Western Cape.
Natural Resources
Only 12 percent of South Africa’s land area is cultivated and only 7 percent is forested, but the country is rich in mineral resources. South Africa is the world’s largest producer of gold, with almost all of it coming from the Witwatersrand. Gold is mined to depths below 3,000 m (10,000 ft), making production expensive. Uranium is also extracted commercially in the Witwatersrand. Vast, easily worked coal seams occur between Lesotho and Swaziland, and South Africa has become a leading coal exporter.
The Bush Veld Igneous Complex, a highly mineralized area of 50,000 sq km (20,000 sq mi) located mainly in Northern Province and Mpumalanga, contains a high proportion of the world reserves of several important minerals. It contains 69 percent of world reserves of chrome ore, 45 percent of vanadium, and about 90 percent of andalusite, as well as platinum, nickel, and fluorspar. Diamonds are another important source of South Africa’s mineral wealth. Most of South Africa’s diamond fields are located in the Kimberley area of Northern Cape; this province also has the largest known manganese deposits in the world.
Fauna and Flora
South Africa has remarkably diverse plant life for a country of its size, comprising about 22,000 different species, many of them native. Grasslands cover most of the plateau areas, resembling a prairie on the nearly treeless High Veld. The Bush Veld is characterized by savanna vegetation, consisting of mixed grassland with trees and bushes such as the baobab tree in Northern Province and the mopani tree in the central Bush Veld. On the Great Karoo and Little Karoo, the grasslands are sparse. Vegetation consists of coarse desert grasses that grow in tufts and become green only after rain. The semidesert Northern Cape is transformed after spring rains with blooming wildflowers in the Namaqualand region.
Areas on the Cape Peninsula, and about 70,000 sq km (about 27,500 sq mi) of southern Western Cape Province, contain the distinctive fynbos biome, an ecological community. Although relatively small in area, this region constitutes one of the six recognized floral kingdoms of the world. It includes 8,500 plant species, of which more than 6,000 are indigenous. This biome is home to the protea, an evergreen shrub for which South Africa is renowned.
The only significant forests in South Africa lie along the coasts of Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces, although there are patches of protected rain forest in the Eastern Low Veld. Hardwood species such as yellowwood, ironwood, and lemonwood trees are found in these areas, but softwoods are scarce; coniferous pines from Europe and North America have been planted to provide timber and wood pulp.
Numerous large mammals, including lions, elephants, zebras, leopards, monkeys, baboons, hippopotamuses, rhinoceroses, and antelope, are indigenous to South Africa. For the most part such animals are found only on game reserves. Much of Kruger National Park, the oldest game reserve, was a protected area as early as 1898. It covers an area of 19,485 sq km (7,523 sq mi) along the Mozambique border. Kruger National Park includes nearly every species of indigenous wildlife and is particularly noted for the small black rhino population built up by the National Parks Board. Other notable reserves include Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park (shared with Botswana) in the northwest; Addo Elephant National Park, near Port Elizabeth; and Mountain Zebra National Park, near Cradock. Bird life is abundant and includes the larger birds: ostrich, francolin (a type of partridge), quail, guinea fowl, and grouse. Snakes are common in most of the country.
Climate
South Africa enjoys a generally warm, temperate climate. Most of the country experiences light rainfall and long hours of sunshine.
Rainfall is typically unpredictable. Prolonged droughts often end with severe floods. Only 31 percent of the country, including the Eastern Low Veld and the Drakensberg, has an annual rainfall of more than 600 mm (25 in); 48 percent receives from 200 mm to 600 mm (8 to 24 in), including much of the High Veld, where rainfall diminishes rapidly from east to west; 21 percent, in the west, is arid, with less than 200 mm (8 in). Rain falls primarily in summer between October and April. In the drier regions of the plateaus the amount of rainfall and the beginning of the rainy season vary greatly from year to year. The extreme southwest has a Mediterranean climate with westerly winds from the Atlantic bringing winter rainfall mostly between June and September.
Since most of South Africa is at a high elevation, temperatures tend to be lower than those of other regions at similar latitudes. There is a striking difference between temperatures on the east and west coasts. The east coast is influenced by the warm Agulhas Current and the west coast by the cold Benguela Current. This results in a temperature difference of 6°C (11°F) in the mean annual temperatures of Durban on the east coast and Port Nolloth on the west coast, which are at similar latitudes. Average temperature ranges in January are 21° to 27°C (69° to 81°F) in Durban, 14° to 26°C (58° to 78°F) in Johannesburg, and 12° to 34°C (54° to 93°F) in Cape Town. In July the temperature ranges are 11° to 22°C (52° to 72°F) in Durban, 4° to 17°C (39° to 63°F) in Johannesburg, and 4° to 24°C (38° to 76°F) in Cape Town. Snow is rare except in the higher parts of the Drakensberg, but winter frosts occur on the higher parts of the plateau.
Language
Until apartheid ended in 1994 only Afrikaans and English were official languages, although they represent the home languages of only 15 percent and 9 percent of the total population, respectively. Afrikaans is spoken not only by Afrikaners but also by 83 percent of Coloured people. English is the primary language of many whites, but also is spoken by 95 percent of Asians. The 1994 constitution added nine African languages to the list of recognized, official languages: Zulu, Xhosa, Sesotho sa Leboa (Northern Sotho or Pedi), Tswana, Sesotho (Southern Sotho), Tsonga, Venda, Ndebele, and siSwati. Some of these African languages are mutually understood and many blacks can speak two or more of them, in addition to English and Afrikaans. Together these 11 languages are the primary languages of 98 percent of South Africans. Many Indians also speak Hindi, Tamil, Telegu, Gujarati, and Urdu.
In practice English and, to a lesser extent, Afrikaans retain a dominant position, with English as the main medium of instruction in schools and most universities. Afrikaners attach great value to their language, however, and struggle to keep it as a medium of instruction and to resist any threat to undermine its status.
Religion
About 92 percent of South Africans are Christians, 2 percent are Hindus, and 2 percent are Muslims. Hindus are mainly Indian, and Muslims either Indian or Coloured. There has been some growth of Islam among Coloured people in recent years. The Christian churches include over 4,000 African independent churches that collectively claim over 8.5 million adherents.
Most Afrikaners belong to one of the three Dutch Reformed churches whose 4.5 million members also include about half of the Coloured people and a small number of blacks. The Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk (Afrikaans for “Dutch Reformed Church”) is the largest of the Dutch Reformed churches with 4 million members including the Coloured and African membership. It was a racially segregated church that supported the state during the apartheid years, but then recanted and moved closer to other churches. Other denominations include Roman Catholics (2.91 million), Methodists (2.25 million), Anglicans (1.46 million), Lutherans (0.96 million), and Presbyterians (0.56 million). The larger churches in this group were prominent in the struggle against apartheid, at least at the leadership level. A number of charismatic churches (an interdenominational Christian movement) have also been established in recent years, including the Rhema Church in Randburg, Gauteng Province.
