Country Profile [CIA World Factbook]
Dutch traders landed at the southern tip of modern day South Africa in 1652 and established a stopover point on the spice route between the Netherlands and the East, founding the city of Cape Town. After the British seized the Cape of Good Hope area in 1806, many of the Dutch settlers (the Boers) trekked north to found their own republics. The discovery of diamonds (1867) and gold (1886) spurred wealth and immigration and intensified the subjugation of the native inhabitants. The Boers resisted British encroachments but were defeated in the Boer War (1899-1902); however, the British and the Afrikaners, as the Boers became known, ruled together under the Union of South Africa. In 1948, the National Party was voted into power and instituted a policy of apartheid - the separate development of the races. The first multi-racial elections in 1994 brought an end to apartheid and ushered in black majority rule.
Disputes
South Africa has placed military along the border to apprehend the thousands of Zimbabweans fleeing economic dysfunction and political persecution; as of January 2007, South Africa also supports large numbers of refugees and asylum seekers from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (33,000), Somalia (20,000), Burundi (6,500), and other states in Africa (26,000); managed dispute with Namibia over the location of the boundary in the Orange River; in 2006, Swazi king advocates resort to ICJ to claim parts of Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal from South Africa
| Location |
Southern Africa, at the southern tip of the continent of Africa |
| Coordinates |
29° 0' S 24° 0' E |
| Capital
| Pretoria |
| Main Cities |
Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg |
| Area |
1219912 km2 |
| Boundaries (km) |
4,862 - Botswana 1,840, Lesotho 909, Mozambique 491, Namibia 967, Swaziland 430, Zimbabwe 225 |
| Coastline (km) |
2,798 |
| Timezone (GMT) |
2 |
| Population |
49,052,489 note: estimates for this country explicitly take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS; this can result in lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality, higher death rates, lower population growth rates, and changes in the distribution of population by age and sex than would otherwise be expected (July 2009 est.) (Demographics) |
| Public Holidays |
Freedom Day, 27 April (1994) |
| Currency |
rand (ZAR) |
| GDP |
$467.1 billion (2007 est.) (Economic data) |
| Main Exports |
gold, diamonds, platinum, other metals and minerals, machinery and equipment |
| Climate |
mostly semiarid; subtropical along east coast; sunny days, cool nights |
| Natural Hazards |
prolonged droughts |
| Physical Features |
Kalahari desert (260,000 km2), vast interior plateau rimmed by rugged hills and narrow coastal plain |
| Environmental Agreements |
party to: Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, Antarctic-Marine Living Resources, Antarctic Seals, Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping, Marine Life Conservation, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Wetlands, Whaling signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements |
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