South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is a country bounded on the south by 2,798 kilometers of coastline ofSouthern Africa stretching along the South Atlantic and Indian

South Africa

South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is a country bounded on the south by 2,798 kilometers of coastline ofSouthern Africa stretching along the South Atlantic and Indian oceans,^[9][10][11] on the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia,Botswana and Zimbabwe, and on the east by Mozambique and Swaziland, and surrounding the kingdom of Lesotho.^[12] South Africa is the 25th-largest country in the world by land area, and with close to 53 million people, is the world's 24th-most populous nation.

South Africa is a multiethnic society encompassing a wide variety of cultures, languages, and religions. Its pluralistic makeup is reflected in the constitution's recognition of 11 official languages, which is among the highest number of any country in the world.^[11]Two of these languages are of European origin: Afrikaans developed from Dutch and serves as the first language of most white andcoloured South Africans; English reflects the legacy of British colonialism, and is commonly used in public and commercial life, though it is fourth-ranked as a spoken first language.^[11]

About 80 percent of South Africans are of sub-Saharan African ancestry,^[5] divided among a variety of ethnic groups speaking different Bantu languages, nine of which have official status.^[11] The remaining population consists of Africa's largest communities ofEuropean (white), Asian (Indian), and multiracial (coloured) ancestry. Since 1994, all ethnic and linguistic groups have had political representation in the country's constitutional democracy, which comprises a parliamentary republic and nine provinces. South Africa is often referred to as the "Rainbow Nation," a term coined by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and later adopted by then-PresidentNelson Mandela as a metaphor to describe the country's newly developing multicultural diversity in the wake of segregationistapartheid ideology.^[13]

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. But the vast majority of black South Africans were not enfranchised until 1994. During the 20th century, the black majority sought to recover its rights from the dominant white minority, with this struggle playing a large role in the country's recent history and politics. The National Party imposed apartheid in 1948, institutionalizing previous racial segregation. After a long and sometimes violent struggle by the African National Congress and other anti-apartheid activists, discriminatory laws began to be repealed or abolished from 1990 onwards.

South Africa is ranked as an upper-middle income economy by the World Bank, and is considered to be a newly industrialised country.^[14][15] Its economy is the second-largest in Africa, and the 34th-largest in the world.^[6] In terms of purchasing power parity, South Africa has the seventh-highest per capita income in Africa. However, poverty and inequality remain widespread, with about a quarter of the population unemployed and living on less than US$1.25 a day. Nevertheless, South Africa has been identified as a middle power in international affairs, and maintains significant regional influence.

The history of South Africa is characterised by racial violence, territorial conflict, wars of conquest, and inter-ethnic rivalry. The aboriginal San have lived in the region for millennia. Most of the rest of the population, however, trace their history to immigration since then. Indigenous Africans in South Africa are descendants of Bantu immigrants from central Africa, who first entered what are now the confines of the country roughly 2000 years ago. White South Africans are descendants of later European settlers, mainly from the Netherlands, Germany, France and Britain. The large population of Coloureds, as they were officially classified, are descended at least in part from all of these groups, as well as from slaves imported from Madagascar, East Africa and the then Dutch East Indies.

The discoveries of diamonds and gold in the 19th Century had a profound effect on the fortunes of the region, propelling it onto the world stage and introducing a shift away from an exclusively agrarian-based economy towards industrialisation and the development of urban infrastructe. The discoveries also led to new conflicts including open warfare between the Boer settlers and imperial Britain.

South Africa was under an official system of racial segregation and white minority rule from 1948 known as Apartheid, until its first egalitarian elections on 27 April 1994, when the African National Congress came to power and dominated the politics of the country in alliance with the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions.

South Africa is located at the southernmost region of Africa, with a long coastline that stretches more than 2,500 km (1,553 mi) and along two oceans (the South Atlantic and the Indian). At 1,219,912 km²(471,011 sq mi),^[56] South Africa is the 25th-largest country in the world and is comparable in size to Colombia. Mafadi in the Drakensberg at 3,450 m (11,320 ft) is the highest peak in South Africa. Excluding thePrince Edward Islands, the country lies between latitudes 22° and 35°S, and longitudes 16° and 33°E.’

The Constitution of South Africa is the supreme rule of law in the country. The primary sources of South African law are Roman-Dutch mercantile law and personal law with English Common law, as imports of Dutch settlements and British colonialism.^[87] The first European based law in South Africa was brought by the Dutch East India Company and is called Roman-Dutch law. It was imported before thecodification of European law into the Napoleonic Code and is comparable in many ways to Scots law. This was followed in the 19th century by English law, both common and statutory. Starting in 1910 with unification, South Africa had its own parliament which passed laws specific for South Africa, building on those previously passed for the individual member colonies.

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