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| South Africa | Plants and Animal | Back to Top |
Cereals and grains are South Africa's most important crops, occupying more than 60 percent of hectarage under cultivation in the 1990s. Corn, the country's most important crop, is a dietary staple, a source of livestock feed, and an export crop. Government programs, including generous loans and extension services, have been crucial to the country's self-sufficiency in this enterprise. Corn is grown commercially on large farms, and on more than 12,000 small farms, primarily in North-West, Mpumalanga (formerly, Eastern Transvaal), Free State (formerly, the Orange Free State), and KwaZulu-Natal provinces. Corn production generates at least 150,000 jobs in years with good rainfall and uses almost one-half of the inputs of the modern agricultural sector.
Corn production exceeds 10 million tons in good years; owing to regional drought in the early 1990s, however, production fell to just over 3 million tons in 1992, and roughly 5 million tons of corn were imported, at a cost of at least US$700 million. Both domestic and imported corn was shipped to neighboring countries to help ease the regional impacts of the drought. The drought eased in 1993, and officials estimated the 1994 harvest at approximately 12 million tons. Below-average rainfall in late 1994 again threatened to reduce corn output in 1995, and officials expected to import some 600,000 tons of corn in that year. Plentiful rain in late 1995 provided for a bumper crop in 1996.
Wheat production, which is concentrated in large, highly mechanized farms, also increased after World War II. Wheat cultivation spread from the western Cape where rainfall is fairly reliable, to the Orange Free State and the eastern Transvaal, primarily in response to rising consumer demand. But wheat harvest volumes vary widely; for example, roughly 2.1 million tons were produced in 1991 and only 1.3 million tons in 1992. Production in the early 1990s failed to meet local demand for about 2.2 million tons per year. Wheat imports in 1992, for example, cost more than US$5 million.
Other small grains are grown in localized areas of South Africa. For example, sorghum--which is native to southern Africa--is grown in parts of the Free State, as well as in the North-West and the Northern provinces, with yields often exceeding 200,000 tons. Sorghum has been used since prehistoric times for food and brewing purposes. Barley is also grown, primarily in the Western Cape. Nearly 300,000 tons of barley were produced in 1995.
South Africa produces peanuts, sunflower seeds, beans, and soybeans. Annual production of these crops varies significantly from year to year, although South Africa is usually able to meet domestic vegetable-oil needs and generate some exports. Plentiful rains in late 1995 meant increased harvests of these crops in 1996, compared to 1994 and 1995.
Fruits, including grapes for wine, earn as much as 40 percent of agricultural export earnings in some years. (Fresh fruit finds a good market in Europe because it matures during the northern hemisphere's winter.) Deciduous fruits, including apples, pears, and peaches, are grown primarily in areas of the Western Cape and the Eastern Cape, where cold winters and dry summers provide ideal conditions for these crops. Almost 1 million tons of deciduous fruits were sold fresh locally or were exported each year in the early 1990s.
Pineapples are grown, primarily in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. Tropical fruits--especially bananas, avocados, and mangoes--are also grown, especially in the northeast and some coastal areas. More than half of citrus production is exported in most years. South Africa exported 40 million cartons of citrus fruit in 1994, earning roughly R1.34 billion, according to industry sources.
More than 1.5 million tons of grapes are used domestically in South Africa's renowned wine industry, which dates back to the seventeenth-century vineyards introduced by French Huguenot immigrants. More than 100,000 hectares of land are planted in vineyards, centered primarily in the Western Cape. Smaller vineyards are also found in the Northern Cape, Free State, and Northern Province. One of the noticeable signs of the end of international sanctions against South Africa was a dramatic increase in worldwide demand for South African wines in 1994 and 1995.
Sugarcane is also an important export crop, and South Africa is the world's tenth largest sugar producer. Sugarcane was first cultivated in mid-nineteenth-century Natal. Production is still centered there, but sugar is also grown in Mpumalanga, where irrigation is used when rainfall is inadequate. Land under sugar cultivation has steadily increased, and the industry estimated that it produced more than 16 million tons of sugarcane in 1994.
From the earliest times, livestock raising has been the backbone of South African agriculture. The large sheep herds of the Khoikhoi peoples on the Cape peninsula were admired and later appropriated by European settlers in the seventeenth century. The early Xhosa and Zulu societies were well known for the value they placed on cattle even before Europeans began cattle farming in the region in the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries. The Europeans brought new breeds of sheep and cattle to southern Africa, and from these various stocks emerged a thriving commercial livestock sector. Cattle, estimated at more than 8 million head, are found in areas throughout the country; sheep (nearly 26 million) graze primarily in pastures stretching across the Northern Cape, Eastern Cape, western Free State, and Mpumalanga.
The livestock sector produces an estimated 900,000 tons of red meat each year. For example, the industry reported that nearly 2 million head of cattle were slaughtered in 1994. Poultry and pig farms are also found across the country, although most large commercial farms are near metropolitan areas. The industry estimates that farmers own roughly 1.2 million pigs. The poultry industry, with at least 11 million chickens, reportedly produced more than 500,000 tons of meat in 1994. In addition, a small but growing ostrich-raising industry produces plumes, skins, and meat.
Wool is an important agricultural export. South Africa became the world's fourth-largest exporter of wool by the late 1940s, and is consistently among the world's top ten wool producers, with an output of about 100,000 tons in most years. Approximately 60 percent of South African sheep are Merino, which produce high yields of fine wool. The newer, locally developed Afrino breed is a wool-mutton breed adapted to arid conditions. Most wool is exported, but the domestic wool-processing industry includes wool washing, combing, spinning, and weaving.
Dairy farming is found throughout the country, especially in the eastern half, and is sufficient to meet domestic needs, barring periods of extreme drought. The predominant dairy breeds are Holstein, Friesian, and Jersey cows. The milk price was deregulated in 1983, resulting in lower prices, but industry regulations continued to enforce strict health precautions. In a system dating to 1930, all wholesale milk buyers pay a compulsory levy to the National Milk Board. This money is pooled in a stabilization fund and used to subsidize dairies manufacturing butter, skim milk powder, and cheese when a surplus exists. Fresh-milk dairies objected in the early 1990s, however, and several of them were involved in litigation to have the levy lifted.
| South Africa | Communications | Back to Top |
the system is the best developed and most modern in Africa domestic: consists of carrier-equipped open-wire lines, coaxial cables, microwave radio relay links, fiber-optic cable, radiotelephone communication stations, and wireless local loops; key centers are Bloemfontein, Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth, and Pretoria international: 2 submarine cables; satellite earth stations - 3 Intelsat
| South Africa | Culture | Back to Top |
Society is still being formed in South Africa in the 1990s. The region's earliest cultures have long since been displaced, and most people living in South Africa today are descendants of Africans who came to the region in the first millennium A.D. These early populations did not remain in one place over the centuries, however. Instead, their settlement patterns changed as numerous small chiefdoms were thrown into upheaval by increasing conflicts over land, the arrival of European settlers after the seventeenth century, and nineteenth-century Zulu expansionism. During the twentieth century, several million South Africans were displaced by the government, especially after the country's system of apartheid invalidated many of their land claims.
South Africa's turbulent social history should not obscure the fact that this region probably was home to some of the earliest humans on earth. Archaeological evidence suggests that human populations evolved in the broad region of south central and eastern Africa, perhaps as early as 2 million years ago, but at least 200,000 years ago. Fossil remains of Homo sapiens in eastern South Africa have been tentatively dated to 50,000 years ago, and other remains show evidence of iron smelting about 1,700 years ago in the area that became the northern Transvaal. The evolutionary links between the earliest inhabitants and twentieth-century African populations are not well known, but it is clear that San and Khoikhoi (also called Khoi) peoples have been in southern Africa longer than any other living population.
San hunters and gatherers and Khoikhoi herdsmen, known together as Khoisan because of cultural and linguistic similarities, were called "Bushmen" and "Hottentots" by early European settlers. Both of these terms are considered pejorative in the late twentieth century and are seldom used. Most of the nearly 3 million South Africans of mixed-race ancestry (so-called "coloureds") are descendants of Khoisan peoples and Europeans over the past three centuries.
Bantu language speakers who arrived in southern Africa from the north during the first millennium A.D. displaced or killed some Khoisan peoples they encountered, but they allowed many others to live among them peacefully. Most Bantu societies were organized into villages and chiefdoms, and their economies relied primarily on livestock and crop cultivation. Their early ethnic identities were fluid and shifted according to political and social demands. For example, the Nguni or Nguni speakers, one of the largest Bantu language groups, have been a diverse and expanding population for several centuries. When groups clashed with one another, or their communities became too large, their political identity could easily shift to emphasize their loyalty to a specific leader or descent from a specific forebear.
Historians believe that the ancestors of the Nguni-speaking Xhosa peoples were the first Bantu speakers to reach the southern tip of the continent. The Zulu, a related group of small chiefdoms, arrived soon after, and by the early nineteenth century they had evolved into a large, predatory kingdom. Zulu armies displaced or destroyed many small chiefdoms, and in the upheaval some of those who fled north probably retraced the pathways their ancestors had used centuries earlier as they moved into the region. Others were subjugated and assimilated into Zulu society, and a few--the forebears of today's Swazi and Sotho peoples--resisted Zulu advances and withdrew into mountainous regions that would later become independent nations.
European travelers and explorers visited southern Africa over the centuries and, after the mid-seventeenth century, began settling near the Cape of Good Hope. Dutch immigrants moved inland from the coast in search of farmland and independence, especially during the nineteenth century, when their migration became known as the "Great Trek." British merchants, farmers, and missionaries arrived in large numbers during the nineteenth century. Asians, including merchants and traders as well as laborers and slaves, arrived from India, China, Malaya, and the Indonesian archipelago. South Africa began to develop a multiethnic mercantile, trading, and financial class, based primarily on the country's mineral wealth after the discovery of diamonds and gold in the 1880s.
The South African War of 1899-1902, one of the Anglo-Boer Wars, hastened the process of assimilation that made South Africa one of the twentieth century's most diverse populations. After the war, East Europeans arrived in growing numbers, many of them fleeing religious or political persecution. South Africans of African descent were increasingly marginalized as the concept of racial separation became a central theme in political debate and a key factor in government strategies for economic development.
The mining industry fueled the development of the interior plateau region as the nation's industrial heartland. Agriculture was made possible in this relatively arid land scattered with rocky outcrops only by employing indigenous or imported laborers at low wages and by the extensive use of irrigation. These measures allowed rural whites to achieve living standards that would have been impossible elsewhere and contributed to the growth of flourishing urban centers. The earliest of these were Cape Town, where the relatively dry hinterland proved ideal for grain farming and vineyards, and Durban, where agricultural development centered around sugarcane, forestry, and a variety of food crops.
The government adopted elements of legally entrenched racial supremacy in the twentieth century that culminated in the legal separation of the races, or apartheid, after 1948. Some believed that apartheid would allow parallel development of all ethnic and racial groups, but it was soon clear to most South Africans and to others that apartheid was an intolerable system of racial privilege and subordination bolstered by the frequent use of force.
Until the mid-twentieth century, white South Africans' views on race were relatively consistent with those of other Western nations. But after World War II, when the rest of the world began working toward greater integration among races and nations, South Africa veered in the opposite direction. By the 1960s, white domination had become entrenched, even as colonial rule was ending in the rest of Africa and racial segregation was condemned throughout much of the world.
As a result, South Africa became increasingly marginalized within the international community. Apartheid became so repugnant to so many people worldwide that this wealthy nation faced mounting economic and political pressures to end it. South Africa's growing isolation, together with the disastrous effects of apartheid, convinced most whites that racial separation would, in the long run, not guarantee their safety or prosperity. The government began dismantling racial barriers in the early 1990s, but apartheid-era distinctions left lasting marks on South African society, and the new, multiracial government in the mid-1990s faced too many pressing needs to spend much time celebrating its country's newfound character.
| South Africa | Defence | Back to Top |
Military branches: South African National Defense Force or SANDF (includes Army, Navy, Air Force, and Medical Services), South African Police Service or SAPS
Military manpower - military age: 18 years of age
Military manpower - availability: males age 15-49: 11,469,812 (2001 est.)
Military manpower - fit for military service: males age 15-49: 6,977,328 (2001 est.)
Military manpower - reaching military age annually: males: 466,399 (2001 est.)
| South Africa | International Disputes | Back to Top |
Swaziland has asked South Africa to open negotiations on reincorporating some nearby South African territories that are populated by ethnic Swazis or that were long ago part of the Swazi Kingdom
| South Africa | Economy | Back to Top |
South Africa is changing economically from a producer of raw materials to an industrial nation that produces both raw materials and commercial products. The nation’s manufacturing, commerce, and services have been built extensively on the foundations of mining and farming. The economy remained primarily agricultural for much of the 19th century until the discovery of diamonds at Kimberley in 1867 and gold on the Witwatersrand in the 1880s. Mining quickly became dominant, but was overtaken by manufacturing during World War II. South Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP) was $131.1 billion in 1999. The GDP per capita in South Africa is $3,110 per year
In the years since World War II, South Africa has experienced highly variable growth rates, including some years when its growth rate was among the highest in the world. Its gross domestic product (GDP) is the largest in Africa. Foreign capital has been extensively invested in South Africa, but the level of foreign investment declined in the period of slower growth and antiapartheid activity in the late 1970s and '80s. South Africa's economy long was dependent on agriculture and mining and on the export of commodities and import of manufactured goods. Since World War II the country has built a well-developed manufacturing base, though it continues to import manufactured goods and remains dependent on the export of primary products. The high value of the precious metals that form the core of South Africa's mineral exports has enabled the country to maintain a high and stable positive balance of trade.
South Africa is a middle-income, developing country with an abundant supply of resources, well-developed financial, legal, communications, energy, and transport sectors, a stock exchange that ranks among the 10 largest in the world, and a modern infrastructure supporting an efficient distribution of goods to major urban centers throughout the region. However, growth has not been strong enough to cut into the 30% unemployment, and daunting economic problems remain from the apartheid era, especially the problems of poverty and lack of economic empowerment among the disadvantaged groups. Other problems are crime, corruption, and HIV/AIDS. At the start of 2000, President MBEKI vowed to promote economic growth and foreign investment, and to reduce poverty by relaxing restrictive labor laws, stepping up the pace of privatization, and cutting unneeded governmental spending.
| South Africa | Education | Back to Top |
Schools in South Africa, as elsewhere, reflect society's political philosophy and goals. The earliest mission schools aimed to inculcate literacy and new social and religious values, and schools for European immigrants aimed to preserve the values of previous generations. In the twentieth century, the education system assumed economic importance as it prepared young Africans for low-wage labor and protected the privileged white minority from competition. From the 1950s to the mid-1990s, no other social institution reflected the government's racial philosophy of apartheid more clearly than the education system. Because the schools were required both to teach and to practice apartheid, they were especially vulnerable to the weaknesses of the system.
Many young people during the 1980s were committed to destroying the school system because of its identification with apartheid. Student strikes, vandalism, and violence seriously undermined the schools' ability to function. By the early 1990s, shortages of teachers, classrooms, and equipment had taken a further toll on education.
South Africa's industrial economy, with its strong reliance on capital-intensive development, provided relatively few prospects for employment for those who had only minimal educational credentials, or none at all. Nationwide literacy was less than 60 percent throughout the 1980s, and an estimated 500,000 unskilled and uneducated young people faced unemployment by the end of the decade, according to the respected Education Foundation. At the same time, job openings for highly skilled workers and managers far outpaced the number of qualified applicants. These problems were being addressed in the political reforms of the 1990s, but the legacies of apartheid--the insufficient education of the majority of the population and the backlog of deficiencies in the school system--promised to challenge future governments for decades, or perhaps generations.
Under apartheid the education system was racially structured with separate national departments for whites, Coloureds, Asians, and blacks outside of the bantustans. Ten separate education departments were established within the bantustans. Although government spending on black education increased greatly in the late 1980s, at the end of the apartheid era in 1994 per capita expenditures for white pupils were still four times higher than expenditures for blacks; spending on education for Asians and Coloured people was closer to spending for whites.
| South Africa | Government | Back to Top |
Political System: Federal state consisting of central government and nine provincial governments. Interim constitution: approved December 22, 1993, implemented April 27, 1994, intended to be in force until 1999, being replaced by final constitution in phases, 1997-99. Interim constitution provides for Government of National Unity: bicameral parliament includes 400-member National Assembly (popularly elected by party, list-system proportional representation based on universal suffrage at age eighteen), ninety-member Senate (indirectly elected by provincial legislators). President elected by parliament; deputy presidents named by parties winning 20 percent of popular vote (minimum two). Executive branch under interim constitution: president, Nelson Mandela (African National Congress--ANC), two deputy presidents--Thabo Mbeki (ANC) and Frederik Willem de Klerk (National Party--NP). President appointed twenty-eight cabinet ministers from parties with 5 percent of popular vote. Executive, legislative officials normally serve five-year terms. Final constitution drafted by Constitutional Assembly (both houses of parliament), 1996; replaces Government of National Unity with majoritarian rule: Party winning majority of popular vote names executive officials; also replaces Senate with National Council of Provinces: six permanent members indirectly elected by each provincial legislature; each province fills additional four seats on national council by rotation from provincial legislature. NP abandoned Government of National Unity, June 1996, to become parliamentary opposition. Status of KwaZulu-Natal unresolved. Parliamentary Volkstaat Council considering proposals for self-determination by proapartheid whites in separate volkstaat.
Major political parties: ANC, NP, Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), Freedom Front (FF), Democratic Party (DP), Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP); several smaller parties. Next national elections scheduled 1999.
Administrative Divisions: Nine provinces, provisional boundaries subject to change by referendum. Provinces (and capitals): Eastern Cape (Bisho), Mpumalanga (Nelspruit), Gauteng (Johannesburg), KwaZulu-Natal (Ulundi or Pietermaritzburg), Northern Cape (Kimberley), Northern Province (Pietersburg), North-West Province (Mmabatho), Free State (Bloemfontein),Western Cape (Cape Town).
Provincial and local government: Nine provincial governments formed by list-system proportional representation. Provincial premier (executive) appoints Executive Council (cabinet) based on party strength; provincial assemblies, 30 to 100 legislators based on party strength. November 1995 elections for 688 metropolitan, town, and rural councils, except in KwaZulu-Natal (violence), areas of Western Cape (boundary disputes). Low voter turnout; ANC 66.3 percent, NP 16.2 percent, Freedom Front 5 percent. Western Cape elections, May 29, 1996; NP won control of all contested councils; ANC second. KwaZulu-Natal elections, June 26, 1996, IFP 44.5 percent, ANC 33.2 percent (concentration in urban areas). Provincial authority still being defined; provincial constitutions, once approved by Constitutional Court, could give provincial governments most responsibility for agriculture, education (except universities), health and welfare, housing, police, environmental affairs, language use, media, transportation, sports and recreation, tourism, urban and rural development, and role of traditional leaders. Status of volkstaat not yet determined.
Judicial System: Based on Roman-Dutch law, altered by British rule and post-independence constitutions. Interim constitution of 1993 empaneled eleven-judge Constitutional Court to rule on legislative constitutionality. Supreme Court: Appellate Division (Bloemfontein); six provincial division headquarters: Cape Town, Grahamstown, Kimberley, Bloemfontein, Pietermaritzburg, Pretoria; local divisions. Lower courts: district magistrates hear cases concerning lesser offenses. Judges or magistrates decide guilt or innocence; jury system abolished 1969. Penalties include corporal punishment (whipping). Death penalty abolished in 1995.
Foreign Affairs: Global diplomatic isolation ended in early 1990s. Foreign policy goals: independence from foreign interference; desire to balance friendships with powerful donor nations against loyalty to former antiapartheid allies; desire for close political ties to Africa, close economic ties to Asian "tigers."
International Memberships: Participation in United Nations restored, June 1994. Membership: British Commonwealth of Nations, International Labour Organisation, International Telecommunications Union, Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, Nonaligned Movement (NAM), Organization of African Unity (OAU), Southern African Customs Union (SACU), Southern African Development Community (SADC), Universal Postal Union, World Health Organization (WHO), World Intellectual Property Organization, World Meteorological Organization, World Trade Organization.
| South Africa | History | Back to Top |
History has a compelling importance in South Africa. Political protagonists often refer to historical events and individuals in expounding their different points of view. The African National Congress (ANC), for example, has as one of its symbols the shield of Bambatha, a Zulu chief who died leading the last armed uprising of Africans against the British in 1906. Mangosuthu (Gatsha) Buthelezi, leader of the former KwaZulu homeland and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), often refers to Shaka Zulu, the first great monarch to arise in South Africa, who created a vast military state in the 1820s. Afrikaners have frequently called themselves a "chosen people," ordained by God to rule in South Africa. They have argued that their ancestors settled the subcontinent before any African, but that for the past 200 years they have had to fight against the treachery of Africans and the oppression of British imperialists. The study of the history of South Africa, therefore, is a highly contentious arena marked by wide variations of interpretation and infused with politics.
South Africa did not exist as a unified self-governing state until 1910. Indeed, before the discovery of minerals--diamonds and gold--in the late nineteenth century, the emergence of such a country appeared unlikely because the early history of the subcontinent was marked by economic and political fragmentation. Black African settlement of southern Africa, which archaeologists have dated back to thousands of years before the arrival of whites, produced a great number of African societies that ruled much of what we now know as South Africa until the latter half of the nineteenth century. White settlement, beginning in the seventeenth century, was confined primarily to a small area of the southwestern coast throughout the eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries. Slaves imported from outside southern Africa were the colonists' laborers. White settlers expanded into the interior and along the southeastern coast in the middle of the nineteenth century, but they usually skirted areas heavily populated by Africans. Moreover, the white settlers in the interior--Afrikaners, as they became known at the end of the nineteenth century--engaged in the same cattle-farming and hunting activities as their African neighbors. Although African and Afrikaner often competed--for pastureland and game--a balance of power prevented one from conquering the other.
Mineral discoveries in the 1860s and 1880s revolutionized the economic and political settings. Diamonds and gold fueled economic growth in southern Africa, creating both new market opportunities and a great demand for labor. To meet these labor needs, the British conquered most of the African peoples of the region in a rapid series of campaigns in the 1870s and 1880s and subjected the defeated people to controls that persisted practically to the present day: pass laws regulating the movement of people within urban areas and between urban and rural areas; discriminatory legal treatment of blacks compared with whites; and the establishment of "locations," for rural Africans, that were much smaller than the original landholdings of autonomous African societies in the nineteenth century. When the Union of South Africa was instituted in 1910, its constitutional provisions reflected a society in which whites had achieved a monopoly on wealth and power.
The rise of an industrial economy also brought about conflict between English-speaking whites--primarily mine owners and industrialists, and Dutch-speaking whites--mostly farmers and impoverished urban workers, who competed for control over African land and labor and for access to the great mineral wealth of the country. Between 1910 and 1948, Afrikaner politicians organized and developed a powerful ethnic identity, portraying Africans as savage and threatening and building especially upon white fears of economic competition from cheaper black workers manipulated by unscrupulous English-speaking businessmen. In 1948 the Afrikaner nationalists won control of the government and implemented apartheid, a policy that reinforced existing segregationist practices securing white supremacy but that also aimed at ensuring Afrikaner domination of political power.
After 1948, black Africans, "coloureds", and Asians fought against Afrikaner domination and white supremacy, denying the apartheid dictum that South Africa is a white man's country in which other races should find economic and political autonomy within their own geographically separated communities. Peaceful and violent protests alternated with periods of official repression, but during forty-five years of apartheid, the boundaries the Afrikaners had constructed to ensure their own survival proved intolerable for them as well as for other racial groups. Apartheid bred a climate of intolerance that was repugnant to many people of all races and a social system that turned out to be an economic disaster. The deliberately inferior living conditions and opportunities for a majority of citizens fueled frustration with government, deprived South Africa of a significant domestic market, and made it a pariah among civilized states. By the fourth decade of apartheid, the pressures for reform both from within South Africa and elsewhere, the growing realization that the system was intolerable, and the crumbling economy emboldened political leaders on all sides to take steps to dismantle apartheid.
Nelson (Rolihlahla) Mandela, South Africa's most popular anti-apartheid leader, had witnessed the rise and decline of apartheid firsthand. In the mid-1980s, after more than twenty years in prison for opposing apartheid, he assumed a central role in helping to end it. Government and opposition leaders met for talks--tentative ones at first, and then with greater confidence and amid more publicity--and they agreed on a general approach to political reform. Four years of difficult and uneven progress, amid escalating violence and competing political pressures, finally paid off in 1994, when South Africa held its first multiracial democratic elections. And while both sides could claim some of the success in achieving this historic goal, both sides also faced even greater challenges in trying to establish a stable multiracial society in the decades ahead.
| South Africa | Introduction | Back to Top |
South Africa, Republic of, republic and southernmost country of continental Africa, bordered on the north-west by Namibia; on the north by Botswana and Zimbabwe; on the north-east by Mozambique and Swaziland; on the east and south by the Indian Ocean; and on the west by the Atlantic Ocean. The independent country of Lesotho forms an enclave in the eastern part of the country. South Africa has an area of 1,224,691 sq km (472,731 sq mi). The administrative capital of South Africa is Pretoria, the legislative capital is Cape Town, and the judicial capital is Bloemfontein.
Population 42,327,458 (1997 estimate) Population Density 35 people/sq km (90 people/sq mi) (1997 estimate) Urban/Rural Breakdown 60%Urban 40%Rural Largest Cities Cape Town854,616 Durban715,669 Johannesburg712,507 Pretoria525,583 (1991 census) Largest Metropolitan Areas Cape Town2,350,157 Johannesburg1,916,063 Durban1,137,378 Pretoria1,080,187 (1991 census) Ethnic Groups 75.2%Black African including Zulu, Xhosa, Tswana, and Sotho 13.6%White including Afrikaners and British 8.6%Coloured (mixed race) 2.6%Asian mostly Indians Languages Official Languages Afrikaans, Tsonga, English, Ndebele, Sesotho, Sesotho sa Lebowa, Swazi, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu Other Languages Portuguese, German, Dutch and other European languages, Gujarati, Hindi, Urdu, and other Asian languages Religions 17%Traditional African religions 16%Dutch Reformed Protestantism 13%African Christianity 11%Methodism 9%Roman Catholicism 7%Anglicanism 27%Other including other Christian denominations, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism
| South Africa | Land | Back to Top |
N/A
| South Africa | Languages | Back to Top |
Afrikaans and English were official languages, although they represent the home languages of only 15 percent and 9 percent of the total population, respectively. Afrikaans is spoken not only by Afrikaners but also by 83 percent of Coloured people. English is the primary language of many whites, but also is spoken by 95 percent of Asians. The 1994 constitution added nine African languages to the list of recognized, official languages: Zulu, Xhosa, Sesotho sa Leboa (Northern Sotho or Pedi), Tswana, Sesotho (Southern Sotho), Tsonga, Venda, Ndebele, and siSwati. Some of these African languages are mutually understood and many blacks can speak two or more of them, in addition to English and Afrikaans. Together these 11 languages are the primary languages of 98 percent of South Africans. Many Indians also speak Hindi, Tamil, Telegu, Gujarati, and Urdu.
| South Africa | Legal | Back to Top |
Legal system: based on Roman-Dutch law and English common law; accepts compulsory ICJ jurisdiction, with reservations Suffrage: 18 years of age; universal Executive branch: chief of state: President Thabo MBEKI (since 16 June 1999); Executive Deputy President Jacob ZUMA (since 17 June 1999); note - the president is both the chief of state and head of government head of government: President Thabo MBEKI (since 16 June 1999); Executive Deputy President Jacob ZUMA (since 17 June 1999); note - the president is both the chief of state and head of government cabinet: Cabinet appointed by the president elections: president elected by the National Assembly for a five-year term; election last held 2 June 1999 (next scheduled for sometime between May and July 2004) election results: Thabo MBEKI elected president; percent of National Assembly vote - 100% (by acclamation) note: ANC-IFP governing coalition Legislative branch: bicameral parliament consisting of the National Assembly (400 seats; members are elected by popular vote under a system of proportional representation to serve five-year terms) and the National Council of Provinces (90 seats, 10 members elected by each of the nine provincial legislatures for five-year terms; has special powers to protect regional interests, including the safeguarding of cultural and linguistic traditions among ethnic minorities); note - following the implementation of the new constitution on 3 February 1997 the former Senate was disbanded and replaced by the National Council of Provinces with essentially no change in membership and party affiliations, although the new institution's responsibilities have been changed somewhat by the new constitution elections: National Assembly and National Council of Provinces - last held 2 June 1999 (next to be held NA 2004) election results: National Assembly - percent of vote by party - ANC 66.4%, DP 9.6%, IFP 8.6%, NP 6.9%, UDM 3.4%, ACDP 1.4%, FF 0.8%, other 2.9%; seats by party - ANC 266, DP 38, IFP 34, NP 28, UDM 14, ACDP 6, FF 3, other 11; National Council of Provinces - percent of vote by party - NA%; seats by party - ANC 61, NP 17, FF 4, IFP 5, DP 3 Judicial branch: Constitutional Court; Supreme Court of Appeals; High Courts; Magistrate Courts
| South Africa | Life | Back to Top |
In general, all racial and ethnic groups in South Africa have long-standing beliefs concerning gender roles, and most are based on the premise that women are less important, or less deserving of power, than men. Most African traditional social organizations are male centered and male dominated. Even in the 1990s, in some rural areas of South Africa, for example, wives walk a few paces behind their husbands in keeping with traditional practices. Afrikaner religious beliefs, too, include a strong emphasis on the theoretically biblically based notion that women's contributions to society should normally be approved by, or be on behalf of, men.
Twentieth-century economic and political developments presented South African women with both new obstacles and new opportunities to wield influence. For example, labor force requirements in cities and mining areas have often drawn men away from their homes for months at a time, and, as a result, women have borne many traditionally male responsibilities in the village and home. Women have had to guarantee the day-to-day survival of their families and to carry out financial and legal transactions that otherwise would have been reserved for men.
| South Africa | organization | Back to Top |
ACP, AfDB, BIS, C, CCC, ECA, FAO, G-77, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICC, ICFTU, ICRM, IDA, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, IHO, ILO, IMF, IMO, Inmarsat, Intelsat, Interpol, IOC, IOM, ISO, ITU, MONUC, NAM, NSG, OAU, OPCW, PCA, SACU, SADC, UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNHCR, UNIDO, UNITAR, UNMEE, UPU, WCL, WFTU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WToO, WTrO, ZC
| South Africa | People | Back to Top |
South Africa has a wealth of natural resources, but also some severe environmental problems. The mainstay of the economy, the mining industry, has introduced environmental concerns, and mineowners have taken some steps in recent years to minimize the damage from this enterprise. Agriculture suffers from both land and water shortages, and commercial farming practices have taken a toll on the land. Energy production, too, has often contributed to environmental neglect.
Because of the generally steep grade of the Great Escarpment as it descends from the interior to the coastal lowlands, many of South Africa's rivers have an unusually high rate of runoff and contribute to serious soil erosion. In addition, water consumption needs and irrigation for agriculture have required building numerous dams. As of the mid-1990s, the country has 519 dams with a total capacity of 50 billion cubic meters. Water management engineers estimate that the Vaal River, which provides most of the water for the industrial hub around the Witwatersrand, has reached its maximum capacity for water utilization.
The Lesotho Highlands Water Project, the largest hydroelectric project ever undertaken in Africa, is a thirty-year joint endeavor between South Africa and Lesotho that is due for completion in the year 2020. Through a series of dams on the headwaters of the Orange River, it will alleviate water shortages in South Africa and is expected to provide enough electrical power to enable Lesotho to become virtually self-sufficient in energy.
Much of the land in South Africa has been seriously overgrazed and overcultivated. During the apartheid era, black African farmers were denied many government benefits, such as fertilizers, which were available to white farmers. Settlement patterns, too, have contributed to land degradation, particularly in overcrowded black homelands, and the inadequate and poorly administered homelands' budgets have allowed few improvements in land use.
The environmental impacts of the mining industry have been devastating to some areas of the Witwatersrand, the country's most densely populated region. Some of the gold deposits located here have been mined for more than a century. According to South African geographer Malcolm Lupton and South African urban planning expert Tony Wolfson, mine shafts--the deepest is 3,793 meters--have made hillsides and ridges less stable. Pumping water from subterranean aquifers has caused the natural water table to subside, and the resulting cavities within the dolomite rock formations that overlie many gold deposits sometimes collapse, causing sinkholes. Moreover, these impacts of the mining industry could worsen over time.
Industrial wastes and pollutants are another mining-related environmental hazard. Solid wastes produced by the separation of gold from ore are placed in dumps, and liquid wastes are collected in pits, called slimes dams. Both of these contain small amounts of radioactive uranium. Radon gas emitted by the uranium poses a health threat when inhaled and can contribute to lung cancer and other ailments. Furthermore, the dust from mine dumps can contribute to respiratory diseases, such as silicosis.
Acids and chemicals used to reduce the ore to gold also leave dangerous contaminants in the water table. Streams around Johannesburg townships, such as Soweto, have been found to contain uranium, sulfates, cyanide, and arsenic. Land near mining operations is sometimes rendered "sterile" or too contaminated for farming, and efforts to reclaim the land have often proved too costly for industry or government.
Air pollution is a serious problem in some areas. Most homes lack electricity in the mid-1990s, and coal is used for cooking and heating. Air-quality tests have revealed high levels of particulate pollution, as a result, especially during cold weather. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported in the early 1990s that air-quality measurements in Soweto and surrounding townships outside Johannesburg exceeded recommended levels of particulate pollution for at least three months of the year. Other studies suggest that air pollution contributes to child health problems, especially respiratory ailments, in densely populated areas.
Electricity for industrial and commercial use and for consumption in urban areas is often produced in coal-burning power stations. These electric power stations lack sulfur "scrubbers," and air-quality surveys have shown that they emit as much as 1.2 million tons of sulfur dioxide a year. A 1991 government-appointed panel of researchers reported that South Africa had contributed about 2 percent of the so-called greenhouse gases in the global environment.
Many government officials in 1995 had been among the strongest critics of earlier governments, and a frequent topic of criticism was environmental neglect. Preserving the environment, therefore, was important in the mid-1990s, but financial constraints were limiting the government's ability to enact or implement such measures. Economic development and improved living standards among the poor appeared likely to outweigh long-range environmental concerns for at least the remainder of the 1990s.
The largest cities in South Africa (1995 estimate) include Cape Town (2,727,000), the legislative capital; Durban (1,264,000), the country’s leading port; Johannesburg (2,172,000 ), the commercial capital and metropolis of the goldfields; Pretoria (1,314,000), the administrative capital; and Port Elizabeth (1,035,000), an industrial city and major port. Although it is not a city, Soweto, a township outside Johannesburg, is one of the largest communities in South Africa. The 1991 census counted 596,632 residents in Soweto, but estimates have placed the population at as many as 2 million.
The original Khoikhoi and San peoples of South Africa scarcely exist as distinct groups inside the country today. Other African peoples entered the country several hundred and even thousands of years ago, and their descendants today constitute about three-fourths of South Africa's population. The African population is heterogeneous, composed mainly of four linguistic groups. The largest is the Nguni, including various Ndebele, Swazi, Xhosa, and Zulu peoples, who constitute more than half the African population of the country and form the majority in many eastern and coastal regions. The second largest is Sotho-Tswana, which includes numerous Sotho, Pedi, and Tswana peoples and forms a majority in many Highveld areas. The last two are the Tsonga, or Shangaan, concentrated in Northern and Mpumalanga provinces, and the Venda, concentrated in Northern province.
| South Africa | Politics | Back to Top |
African Christian Democratic Party or ACDP [Kenneth MESHOE, president]; African National Congress or ANC [Thabo MBEKI, president]; Democratic Alliance (formed from the merger of the Democratic Party or DP and the New National Party or NP) [Anthony LEON, leader]; Freedom Front or FF [Constand VILJOEN, president]; Inkatha Freedom Party or IFP [Mangosuthu BUTHELEZI, president]; Pan-Africanist Congress or PAC [Stanley MOGOBA, president]; United Democratic Movement or UDM [Bantu HOLOMISA]
| South Africa | Provinces | Back to Top |
9 provinces; Eastern Cape, Free State, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, North-West, Northern Cape, Northern Province, Western Cape
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