|
South Africa, 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 countrys 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.
Black Africans comprise three quarters of South Africas 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.
South Africa has a multiracial and multiethnic population. Blacks constitute 77 percent of the population. The main black ethnic groups, with their percentages of the total population, are Zulu (22.4), Xhosa (17.5), North Sotho (9.8), Tswana (7.2), South Sotho (6.9), Tsonga (4.2), Venda (1.7), and Ndebele (1.5). Whites account for 11 percent of the population; more than half are Afrikaners, nearly two-fifths English speakers (mostly of British descent), and nearly 10 percent Portuguese. Coloured people account for 9 percent of the population, and Asians (mainly Indians) 2 percent.
The white, Asian, and Coloured populations are highly urbanized. The largest concentrations of Asians and Coloured people are found in KwaZulu-Natal and the three Cape provinces, but lesser numbers of both groups live in Gauteng. English-speaking whites and Afrikaners live in all cities, but Johannesburg, Durban, Cape Town, and Pietermaritzburg have more English speakers whereas Afrikaners are predominant in Pretoria, Bloemfontein, and many of the industrial and mining towns on the Witwatersrand.
More than half of the blacks are urbanized, mostly living in formal, low-income townships or informal, rapidly growing settlements. Some 18 million blacks live in rural communities in the ten former bantustans. Substantial numbers of that population, however, who migrated to the borders of former bantustans to find work in white urban centers, now form part of the functional urban areas of cities like Pretoria, Durban, and East London. The black population of Johannesburg and the rest of Gauteng Province is ethnically mixed, but in other cities one group tends to be dominant: Zulu in Durban and Pietermaritzburg, Sotho in Bloemfontein, and Xhosa in Port Elizabeth, East London, and Cape Town.
The liberation struggle during the years of white minority rule cemented blacks, Asians, and Coloured people together. With the end of apartheid, however, most Asians and Coloured people, conscious of their minority position, turned to vote for the ruling National Party along with most whites. Africans gave overwhelming support to the African National Congress (ANC) except in KwaZulu-Natal, where the ethnically based Inkatha Freedom Party won more than half the Zulu votes. Given past oppression, the relative harmony of post-apartheid society is generally hailed as remarkable. The violent incidents immediately following 1994 were not between blacks and whites but between the Zulu who supported the ANC and those who supported Inkatha. During 1996 the situation in KwaZulu-Natal became more peaceful.
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
