South Africa
National motto : !ke e: lxarra llke (/Xam: Unity In Diversity or lit. Diverse People Unite)
Official languages : Afrikaans, English, Zulu, Xhosa, Swazi, Ndebele, Southern Sotho, Northern Sotho, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda
Capitals : Cape Town (legislative)
Pretoria (administrative)
Bloemfontein (judicial)
Largest city : Johannesburg
President : Kgalema Motlanthe
- Area
- Total: 1,219,912 km²
- % water: Negligible
- Population
- July 2005: 44,344,136
- Density: 36/km²
Independence
- Dominion
- Republic From the United Kingdom
31 May 1910
31 May 1961
Currency : ZAR - South African Rand (R)
Time zone : UTC+2
National anthem : Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika/Die Stem van Suid-Afrika
Internet TLD : .za
Calling code : +27
The Republic of South Africa is a country located at the southern tip of the African continent. It borders the countries of Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Swaziland. Lesotho is an enclave entirely surrounded by South African territory.
The country is one of the few in Africa never to have had a coup d'état, and regular free and fair elections have been held since 1994, making it a regional power and among the most stable and liberal democracies in Africa. The economy of South Africa is the largest and most well-developed of the entire African continent, with modern infrastructure common throughout the country.
Languages
South Africa has 11 official languages: English, Afrikaans, Zulu, Swati, Ndebele, Southern Sotho, Northern Sotho, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda and Xhosa. In this regard it is second only to India in number. As a result, there are many official names for the country.
History
After World War II, the whites were able to maintain their rule by implementing the policies that would become known collectively as apartheid, a series of harsh laws segregating the country along racial lines. Apartheid became increasingly controversial in the late 20th century, leading to widespread sanctions and divestment abroad and growing unrest and oppression by the National Party within South Africa. In 1990, after a long period of resistance, strikes, marches, protests, sabotage, and terrorism by various anti-apartheid movements, most notably the African National Congress (ANC), the National Party government took the first step towards negotiating itself out of power when it lifted the ban on the African National Congress and other left-wing political organizations, and released Nelson Mandela from prison after 27 years. Apartheid legislation was gradually removed from the statute books, and the first multi-racial elections were held in 1994. The ANC won by an overwhelming majority, and has been in power ever since. South Africa is the first, and to date only, country to build nuclear weapons and then voluntarily dismantle its entire nuclear weapons programme.
Despite the end of apartheid, millions of South Africans, mostly black, continue to live in poverty. A series of voluntary and legislative moves under the controversial Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) programme [1] have helped to redress decades of racial imbalance in the management and ownership of South African business and industry. Since 1994, 500 houses have been built each day for the poor. And, in 2004, 8.7 million people benefited from access to Social Grants.
Government
The National Assembly building, located in Cape Town.Main article: Government of South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a constitutional democracy with a three-tiered system of government and an independent judiciary, operating under a parliamentary system. However, unlike republics with Westminster-style parliamentary systems, the President is both Head of State and Head of Government. The minimum age for voting in South Africa is 18. In the first (1994) democratic elections, permanent residents as well as citizens were allowed to vote. In all subsequent elections, only citizens have been granted this privilege - as is the case with most other nations.
The government is decentralised: the national, provincial, and local levels of government all have legislative and executive authority in their own spheres, and is defined in the South African constitution as "distinctive, interdependent, and interrelated"—a system of separation of powers.
All bodies and branches of the South African government are subject to the rule of the constitution, which is the supreme law in South Africa.
Politics
The central area of Pretoria, the administrative capital of South Africa.Main article: Politics of South Africa
South Africa has a bicameral Parliament, comprising the National Council of Provinces (or upper house) with 90 members, and a National Assembly (or lower house) with 400 members. Members of the lower house are elected on a population basis by proportional representation: half of the members are elected from national lists and half are elected from provincial lists. Ten members are elected to represent each province in the National Council of Provinces, regardless of the population of the province. Elections for both chambers are held every five years. The government is formed in the lower house, and the leader of the majority party in the National Assembly is the President.
Provinces
The new provinces are:
Province Former Homelands and Provinces Capital Area (km²) Population (2001)
Eastern Cape, Orange Free State, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, Limpopo
Northern Cape, North West, Western Cape
Economy
South Africa is a middle-income country with an abundant supply of resources, well-developed financial, legal, communications, energy, and transport sectors, a stock exchange, JSE Securities Exchange, that ranks among the 10 largest in the world, and a modern infrastructure supporting an efficient distribution of goods to major urban centres throughout the region. South Africa's per capita GDP, corrected for purchasing power parity, positions the country as one of the 50 wealthiest in the world. In many respects, South Africa is developed.