With approval from the white electorate in a 1992 referendum, the government continued negotiations to end apartheid. South African cuisine is diverse; foods from many cultures are enjoyed by all and especially marketed to tourists who wish to sample the large variety available. At the time of European contact, the dominant ethnic group were Bantu-speaking peoples who had migrated from other parts of Africa about one thousand years before. By the early 17th century, Portugal's maritime power was starting to decline, and English and Dutch merchants competed to oust Lisbon from its lucrative monopoly on the spice trade. [220] The three dominant hospital groups, Mediclinic, Life Healthcare and Netcare, together control 75% of the private hospital market. The amount of land reserved for indigenous peoples was later marginally increased.[60]. VI, p. 750. [166], In August 2013, South Africa was ranked as the top African Country of the Future by fDi magazine based on the country's economic potential, labour environment, cost-effectiveness, infrastructure, business friendliness, and foreign direct investment strategy. There are several species of water-storing succulents, like aloes and euphorbias, in the very hot and dry Namaqualand area. [137] 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)[137] have outraged the nation. South Africa produced Formula One motor racing's 1979 world champion Jody Scheckter. Mzansi, derived from the Xhosa noun uMzantsi meaning "south", is a colloquial name for South Africa,[25][26] while some Pan-Africanist political parties prefer the term "Azania".[27]. [9]:21 The first census in South Africa in 1911 showed that whites made up 22% of the population; this had declined to 16% by 1980. [20][21] However, crime, poverty and inequality remain widespread, with about a quarter of the population unemployed and living on less than US$1.25 a day. [52] The Boers' inability to subdue Sekhukhune and the Pedi led to the departure of Burgers in favour of Paul Kruger and the British annexation of the South African Republic (Transvaal) on 12 April 1877 by Theophilus Shepstone, secretary for native affairs of Natal. These systems have been widely criticised due to their large capital and operating costs. Atlas of Southern Africa. The remaining two languages are Venda and Tsonga. OFFICIAL NAME: Republic of South Africa FORM OF GOVERNMENT: Republic CAPITALS: Pretoria (administrative), Cape Town (legislative), Bloemfontein (judicial) POPULATION: 55, 489, 975 [59], The Natives' Land Act of 1913 severely restricted the ownership of land by blacks; at that stage they controlled only seven percent of the country. They displaced, conquered and absorbed the original Khoisan speakers, the Khoikhoi and San peoples. "Contextualising the hate speech debate: the United States and South Africa". No President may serve more than two terms in office. South Africa held its first universal elections in 1994, which the ANC won by an overwhelming majority. Encyclopædia Britannica (1975); Micropaedia Vol. A negotiation process followed. The National Council of Provinces, the upper house, consists of ninety members, with each of the nine provincial legislatures electing ten members. The last census was held in 2011, with a more recent intercensal national survey conducted in 2016. Different methods of transport in South Africa include roads, railways, airports, water, and pipelines for petroleum oil. There are 23 public universities in South Africa: 11 traditional universities, 6 universities of technology and 6 comprehensive universities. [126] Middle-class South Africans seek security in gated communities. South Africa's country code, ZA, is an abbreviation of this former official name, Zuid-Afrika. [189][190][191] A series of anti-immigrant riots occurred in South Africa beginning on 11 May 2008. South Africa is often referred to as the "rainbow nation" to describe the country's multicultural diversity, especially in the wake of apartheid.[17]. [159], Unlike most of the world's poor countries, South Africa does not have a thriving informal economy. posted by Sidhedevil at 8:44 PM on September 9, 2008 Before its independence in 1990, the area was known first as German South-West Africa (Deutsch-Südwestafrika), then as South-West Africa, reflecting the colonial occupation by the Germans and the South Africans. This relatively well-watered area is home to a great proportion of the country's commercial farmlands and contains its largest conurbation (Gauteng). 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. Linathi: The name is derived from “Linathi igama le Nkosi”, meaning the name of the Lord is with us. There are even smaller reserves of forests that are out of the reach of fire, known as montane forests. [209] 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. 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. While South Africa has a great wealth of flowering plants, only one percent of South Africa is forest, almost exclusively in the humid coastal plain of KwaZulu-Natal, where there are also areas of Southern Africa mangroves in river mouths. They went on to win the tournament again in 2007 and in 2019. The area, a UNESCO World Heritage site, has been branded "the Cradle of Humankind". In 2015, 71 percent of net wealth are held by 10 percent richest of the population, whereas 60 percent of the poorest held only 7 percent of the net wealth and the Gini coefficient was 0.63, whereas in 1996 was 0.61. It was imported before the codification of European law into the Napoleonic Code and is comparable in many ways to Scots law. 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 for specific areas; the Supreme Court of Appeal, and the Constitutional Court, which is the highest court. The fourth chapter of the Constitution of South Africa, states that "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. [163], Principal international trading partners of South Africa—besides other African countries—include Germany, the United States, China, Japan, the United Kingdom and Spain. 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 Cape Floral Region, being identified as one of the global biodiversity hotspots, will be hit very hard by climate change. However, the vast majority of black South Africans were not enfranchised until 1994. Breyten Breytenbach was jailed for his involvement with the guerrilla movement against apartheid. In 1931, the union was 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. Chad, landlocked state in north-central Africa. Archaeologists have recovered extensive fossil remains from a series of caves in Gauteng Province. The black African population is in the majority (47,4 million) and constitutes approximately 81% of the total South African population. Languages Of South Africa . South African cuisine is heavily meat-based and has spawned the distinctively South African social gathering known as the braai, a variation of the barbecue. Most foreign embassies are located in Pretoria. Note the course of the Great Escarpment to the north of these mountain ranges.) [150] South Africa undertook a nuclear weapons programme in the 1970s[150] According to former state president FW de Klerk, the decision to build a "nuclear deterrent" was taken "as early as 1974 against a backdrop of a Soviet expansionist threat. The land (at approximately 400–500 m above sea level) between two of these ranges of fold mountains in the south (i.e. Religious Demography", "In South Africa, many blacks convert to Islam / The Christian Science Monitor", "Muslims say their faith growing fast in Africa", "National adult literacy rates (15+), youth literacy rates (15–24) and elderly literacy rates (65+)", "Peoples Budget Coalition Comments on the 2011/12 Budget", "Motsoaledi to reform private health care", "What does the demand for healthcare look like in SA? [105] The country is ranked sixth out of the world's seventeen megadiverse countries. The name Namib itself is of Nama origin and means "vast place". Why would the official abbreviation come from the country's name in Dutch? [162] From 2004 onward, economic growth picked up significantly; both employment and capital formation increased. 9 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons", "Inequality in income or expenditure / Gini index, Human Development Report 2007/08", "Distribution of family income – Gini index", "South Africa has highest gap between rich and poor", "South Africa's economy: How it could do even better", "Economic Assessment of South Africa 2008: Achieving Accelerated and Shared Growth for South Africa", "African Countries of the Future 2013/14", "Financial Secrecy Index 2020: Narrative Report on South Africa", "Inequality on scale found in SA bites like acid", "Black middle class boosts car sales in South Africa – Business – Mail & Guardian Online", "Economic Assessment of South Africa 2008", "Health Personnel in Southern Africa: Confronting maldistribution and brain drain", "Skilled Labour Migration from Developing Countries: Study on South and Southern Africa", "South Africa's brain-drain generation returning home", "Strategic Perspectives on Illegal Immigration into South Africa", "The Brain Gain: Skilled Migrants and Immigration Policy in Post-Apartheid South Africa", "South Africa: Deadly Attacks on Foreign Truck Drivers", "SKA announces Founding Board and selects Jodrell Bank Observatory to host Project Office", "Africa and Australasia to share Square Kilometre Array", Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation, "Professor Says Cape Town Crisis Should Serve as a 'Wakeup Call to All Major U.S. Cities, "Why Cape Town's drought was so hard to forecast", "The 11 cities most likely to run out of drinking water – like Cape Town", "Anti-immigrant violence spreads in South Africa, with attacks reported in Cape Town – The New York Times", "Immigrants Fleeing Fury of South African Mobs", "Debate over race and censuses not peculiar to SA", "Constitution of South Africa, Chapter 1, Section 6", "Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 – Chapter 1: Founding Provisions | South African Government", "These are the most-spoken languages in South Africa in 2019", "Community Survey 2016: Provinces at a Glance", "World Urbanization Prospects: The 2018 Revision, Online Edition", "South Africa – Section I. 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. [171] Other problems include state ownership and interference, which impose high barriers to entry in many areas. [217] The healthcare spending in the country is about 9% of GDP. During the 1950s, Drum magazine became a hotbed of political satire, fiction, and essays, giving a voice to urban black culture. [91] The climate at the foot of this part of the Drakensberg is temperate. For centuries South Africa’s official languages were European – … 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 McLeod Cormack pioneered X-ray computed tomography (CT scan), and Aaron Klug developed crystallographic electron microscopy techniques. Numerous mammals are found in the Bushveld including lions, African leopards, South African cheetahs, southern white rhinos, blue wildebeest, kudus, impalas, hyenas, hippopotamuses and South African giraffes. South Africa is the only African country to have successfully developed nuclear weapons. To the north, the Great Karoo fades into the even drier and more arid Bushmanland, which eventually becomes the Kalahari desert in the very north-west of the country. This is not a province, but an independent country formally called the Kingdom of Lesotho. [196] Groups of refugees and asylum seekers numbering over 10,000 included people from Zimbabwe (48,400), the DRC (24,800), and Somalia (12,900). Former president de Klerk maintained that South Africa had "never conducted a clandestine nuclear test. New forms of art evolved in the mines and townships: a dynamic art using everything from plastic strips to bicycle spokes. [71] Poverty among whites, which was previously rare, increased. According to several surveys,[176][177] there has been a reverse in brain drain following the global financial crisis of 2008–2009 and expiration of foreign work contracts. The grass and thorn savannah turns slowly into a bush savannah towards the north-east of the country, with denser growth. 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. 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.[235]. The provinces are in turn divided into 52 districts: 8 metropolitan and 44 district municipalities. [141][142] 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 among these people that cultural traditions survive most strongly; as blacks have become increasingly urbanised and Westernised, aspects of traditional culture have declined. The President and the Cabinet may be removed by the National Assembly by a motion of no confidence. 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 Congo (DRC), the Comoros, and Zimbabwe. 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. [40] 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. These languages include English, Afrikaans, the Nguni languages (Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele, and Swazi), as well as the Sotho-Tswana languages, which include Tswana, Sotho and Pedi. "[170] Official affirmative action policies have seen a rise in black economic wealth and an emerging black middle class. (1984). Pressured by other Commonwealth of Nations countries, South Africa withdrew from the organisation in 1961 and rejoined it only in 1994. [183], 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. The most prevalent biome in South Africa is the grassland, particularly on the Highveld, where the plant cover is dominated by different grasses, low shrubs, and acacia trees, mainly camel-thorn (Vachellia erioloba). The white minority (less than 20%)[62] controlled the vastly larger black majority. Table Mountain, one of the iconic landmarks of South Africa, is one of the oldest mountains in the … The district municipalities are further subdivided into 205 local municipalities. [139] The 2019 Johannesburg riots were similar in nature and origin to the 2008 xenophobic riots that also occurred in Johannesburg.[140]. The Constitution of South Africa is the supreme rule of law in the country. 15.1% had no religious affiliation, 0.6% were "other" and 1.4% were "unspecified. The remaining two languages are Venda and Tsonga. [180], The Human Rights Watch reported on 26 August 2019 about foreign national truck drivers being subjected to deadly attacks carried out by South African truck drivers. South Africa has published two national climate change reports in 2011 and 2016.[115]. The legislature elects a Premier as head of government, and the Premier appoints an Executive Council as a provincial cabinet. [199] It is the second most commonly spoken language outside of the household, after Zulu.[200]. BRT has been implemented in some South African cities in an attempt to provide more formalised and safer public transport services. Eventually, though, the war was lost, resulting in the termination of the Zulu nation's independence. [213] Primary schools span the first seven years of schooling. About 80% of South Africans are of Black African ancestry,[9] divided among a variety of ethnic groups speaking different African languages. For the text of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa in all 11 official languages, each version of which contains the name of the country in the respective language, refer to, The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Chapter 1, the website of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_official_names_of_South_Africa&oldid=973357902, Use South African English from September 2019, All Wikipedia articles written in South African English, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 16 August 2020, at 19:45. When asking yourself What is South Africa famous for ? Winters in this region are cold, although snow is rare. [218], About 84% of the population depends on the public healthcare system,[218] which is beset with chronic human resource shortages and limited resources. [45] After briefly returning to Dutch rule under the Batavian Republic in 1803, the Cape was occupied again by the British in 1806. Each of the nine provinces is governed by a unicameral legislature, which is elected every five years by party-list proportional representation. The sailors were able to survive by obtaining fresh water and meat from the natives. South Africa is a multiethnic society encompassing a wide variety of cultures, languages, and religions. [28][29][30] Archaeologists have recovered extensive fossil remains from a series of caves in Gauteng Province. South Africa has lost a large area of natural habitat in the last four decades, primarily due to overpopulation, sprawling development patterns and deforestation during the 19th century. See also about African names. As a concession to the Westminster system, the appointment of the president remained an appointment by parliament, and virtually powerless until P. W. Botha's Constitution Act of 1983, which eliminated the office of Prime Minister and instated a near-unique "strong presidency" responsible to parliament. According to the 2001 census, Christians accounted for 79.8% of the population, with a majority of them being members of various Protestant denominations (broadly defined to include syncretic African initiated churches) and a minority of Roman Catholics and other Christians. [9] 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 (9.6%) reflects the legacy of British colonialism, and is commonly used in public and commercial life. Although the name change was approved by the SAGNC, it has not … [104] It has subsequently produced a National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, which was received by the convention on 7 June 2006. South Africa is a diverse nation with a population of over 55 million comprising of people different languages, origins, cultures, and religious practices. Many of the unofficial languages of the San and Khoekhoe peoples contain regional dialects stretching northwards into Namibia and Botswana, and elsewhere. With the exception of that of Barnard, all of these advancements were recognised with Nobel Prizes.