Introduction
Africa’s southernmost nation is South Africa, formally known as the Republic of South Africa (RSA). Its borders are as follows: to the north are the neighboring nations of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe; to the east and northeast are Mozambique and Eswatini; to the south is a 2,798-kilometer (1,739-mile) length of coastline that runs along the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean. Lesotho is likewise totally enclaved. It is the second most populated nation wholly south of the equator, behind Tanzania, and the southernmost nation on the Old World continent. The greatest economy in Africa as of July 2024 is that of South Africa. South Africa is a hotspot for biodiversity, home to a wide variety of plant and animal species.
The nation, which has a population of nearly 62 million, is the 23rd most populated country in the world. It is spread across 1,221,037 square kilometers (471,445 square miles). The legislative capital is Cape Town, which serves as the seat of Parliament; Pretoria is the administrative capital. It has long been believed that Bloemfontein is the capital of the judiciary. Johannesburg is home to the Constitutional Court, which is the highest court in the nation. According to the Economist Democracy Index, South Africa is one of Africa’s most advanced democracies.
In South Africa, Black people make up around 80% of the population. Africa’s biggest groups of European (White South Africans), Asian (Chinese and Indian South Africans), and mixed (Coloured South Africans) heritage make up the remainder of the population. The multiethnic civilization of South Africa is home to many different cultures, languages, and faiths. The Constitution recognizes 12 official languages—the fourth-highest number in the world—which reflects its multicultural nature. The two most widely spoken first languages in the country, according to the 2022 census, are Xhosa (16.0%) and Zulu (24%) spoken by almost a quarter of the people.
The next two are European in origin: English (9.6%) is a common language in public and commercial life and embodies the heritage of British colonization, while Afrikaans (13.5%), which originated from Dutch, is the first language spoken by the majority of Colored and White South Africans.
The nation has had regular elections for over a century. But it wasn’t until 1994 that the great majority of Black South Africans received their right to vote. The country’s recent history and politics have been greatly influenced by the black majority’s attempts to get further rights from the ruling white minority during the 20th century.
Apartheid was introduced by the National Party in 1948, formalizing earlier racial isolation. The African National Congress and other anti-apartheid activists waged a mostly nonviolent campaign that resulted in the repeal of discriminatory legislation starting in the mid-1980s, both inside and outside the nation. Encompassed in a parliamentary republic and nine provinces, the nation’s liberal democracy has guaranteed political representation to every ethnic and linguistic minority since 1994.
The term “rainbow nation” is frequently used to characterize South Africa’s multicultural variety, particularly in the years after apartheid. South Africa is classified as the third electoral democracy in Africa and the 51st electoral democracy globally in the 2023 V-Dem Democracy Index.
In terms of international relations, South Africa is a medium power. It is an essential component of the BRICS alliance, retains a strong regional presence, and is a part of the African Union, SADC, SACU, Commonwealth of Nations, and G20. With a Human Development Index value of 110th, the highest on the continent, it is classified as a developing nation. The only country in Africa with legislation allowing same-sex marriage is South Africa. Its economy, which is the 38th biggest in the world and the most industrialized and technologically sophisticated in all of Africa, has been categorized by the World Bank as recently industrialized. Of all Africa’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites, South Africa has the most.
Both the standard of living and government accountability have significantly increased since apartheid ended. However, there is still a great deal of violence, poverty, and inequality in the country. As of 2021, 40% of people were jobless, 60% of people were living below the poverty line, and 25% of people made less than $2.15 a day. South Africa is regarded as one of, if not the most, unequal countries in the world, with the highest Gini value of 63.0.
Etymology
The country’s physical position in the southernmost point of Africa is where the term “South Africa” originates. When it was first formed, the nation was known as the Union of South Africa (Unie van Zuid-Afrika in Dutch), which represented the union of four British colonies. Republiek van Suid-Afrika in Afrikaans and “Republic of South Africa” in English have been the official names since 1961. There are twelve official languages for the nation.
Some Pan-Africanist political groups prefer the word “Azania,” whereas Mzansi—a vernacular name for South Africa—is derived from the Xhosa noun uMzantsi, which means “south.”
History
Some of the world’s oldest archeological and human-fossil sites are found in South Africa. Numerous caves in Gauteng Province have yielded large amounts of fossil remains for archaeologists to retrieve. The region is known as “the Cradle of Humankind” and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. These sites include Cooper’s Cave, Swartkrans, Gondolin Cave, Kromdraai, and Malapa. Sterkfontein is one of the world’s richest sites for hominid fossils. The Taung Child, which was unearthed close to Taung in 1924, was the first hominid fossil recovered in Africa, and Raymond Dart identified it.
Additional hominin bones have been found in the following locations: Border Cave in KwaZulu-Natal Province; Klasies River Caves in Eastern Cape Province; Pinnacle Point, Elandsfontein, and Die Kelders Cave in Western Cape Province; and Makapansgat in Limpopo Province.
According to these discoveries, a number of hominid species, including Australopithecus africanus, Australopithecus sediba, Homo ergaster, Homo erectus, Homo rhodesiensis, Homo helmei, Homo naledi, and modern humans (Homo sapiens), lived in South Africa as early as three million years ago. Southern Africa has been home to modern humans for at least 170,000 years. Pebble tools have been found by a number of researchers in the Vaal River valley.
Bantu expansion
By the fourth or fifth century CE, Bantu-speaking agriculturists and herders employing iron were living in settlements south of the Limpopo River, which today forms Zimbabwe’s northern boundary with Botswana. The original Khoisan, Khoikhoi, and San peoples were driven out, subjugated, and assimilated by them. The Bantu made its plodding way south. It is estimated that the first ironworks in the KwaZulu-Natal Province now date to around 1050. The Xhosa people, who lived in the farthest south, borrowed certain linguistic features from the Khoisan people in the past. In the present-day Eastern Cape Province, the Xhosa arrived at the Great Fish River. These bigger Iron Age populations either displaced or assimilated previous peoples as they moved.
The ruins are believed to have been constructed by the Bakone, a Northern Sotho tribe, and include many stone circles and a stone arrangement known as Adam’s Calendar that have been discovered in the province of Mpumalanga.
Portuguese discovery
Bartolomeu Dias, a Portuguese explorer, launched the first European expedition to set foot in southern Africa in 1487. He touched down at Walfisch Bay (now called Walvis Bay in Namibia) on December 4. This was to the south of the farthest point (Cape Cross, north of the bay) that his predecessor, the Portuguese navigator Diogo Cão, had reached in 1485. Dias carried on down southern Africa’s western coast.
He was unable to continue down the coast beyond January 8, 1488, due to storms, thus he sailed past the southernmost tip of Africa without sighting it. In May 1488, he traveled as far up the African coast as what he called Rio do Infante, which is likely the modern-day Groot River.
When he saw the cape upon his return, he gave it the name Cabo das Tormentas, or “Cape of Storms.” Since the point led to the wealth of the East Indies, King John II dubbed it the Cape of Good Hope, or Cabo da Boa Esperança. Os Lusíadas, an epic poem written by Luís de Camões in 1572, immortalized Dias’ feat of navigation.
Dutch domination
Portuguese maritime dominance was beginning to wane by the early 17th century, and English and Dutch traders fought to displace Portugal from its profitable monopoly on the spice trade. As early as 1601, British East India Company representatives made irregular visits to the cape in quest of supplies; nevertheless, they eventually learned to prefer Ascension Island and Saint Helena as substitute ports of refuge. Following the shipwreck of two Dutch East India Company employees at the cape in 1647, which lasted for many months, Dutch attention was piqued. The locals provided the sailors with meat and fresh water, which allowed them to live. In the rich soil, they also planted vegetables.
Positive reports on the cape’s potential as a “warehouse and garden” for supplies to stock passing ships for lengthy trips were received upon their return to Holland.
On behalf of the Dutch East India Company, Jan van Riebeeck founded a victualling post at the Cape of Good Hope, in what would become Cape Town, in 1652, one and a half centuries after the Cape Sea route was discovered. Over time, the cape was home to a sizable community of vrijlieden, or “free citizens,” who were former workers of the firm who remained in Dutch overseas territories after completing their contracts. Additionally, thousands of enslaved individuals from Indonesia, Madagascar, and other regions of eastern Africa were transported to the nascent colony by Dutch traders. A number of the nation’s first mixed-race villages were founded by enslaved individuals, indigenous peoples, and vrijburgers.
As a result, the Cape Coloureds, a new ethnic group, emerged, the majority of whom embraced Christianity and the Dutch language.
The Xhosa Wars, named for the Dutch colonists’ eastward migration, were a series of conflicts between the Xhosa tribe and the moving southwesterly tribe over pastureland near the Great Fish River, which the colonists wanted for grazing cattle. Boers were Vrijburgers who went on to become independent farmers on the frontier; those who chose to live somewhat nomadic lives were called trekboers. In order to oppose Xhosa incursions, the Boers created partnerships with the Khoisan peoples and organized informal troops that they referred to as commandos. Both sides launched brutal but fruitless offensives, and for several decades there was frequent bloodshed mixed with cattle theft.
British colonisation and the Great Trek
Between 1795 and 1803, the French First Republic invaded the Low Countries, and Great Britain seized Cape Town to keep it out of their hands. In 1806, the British retook the cape after it had briefly returned to Dutch authority under the Batavian Republic in 1803. It was legally handed to Great Britain when the Napoleonic Wars ended, and it became an essential component of the British Empire. Beginning in or about 1818, British emigration to South Africa culminated in the arrival of the Settlers in 1820. For a number of reasons, including bolstering border regions against Xhosa raids and expanding the size of the European workforce, the new colonists were coerced into settling.
Under the leadership of Shaka, the Zulu people increased their influence and covered more ground throughout the first two decades of the 1800s. The Mfecane, or “crushing,” which claimed the lives of one to two million people and destroyed and depopulated the interior plateau in the early 1820s, was indirectly caused by Shaka’s fighting. Under the leadership of their monarch Mzilikazi, the Matabele people—a branch of the Zulu people—created a greater kingdom that included most of the highveld.
Early in the 19th century, a large number of Dutch settlers—referred to as Voortrekkers, which means “pathfinders” or “pioneers”—left the Cape Colony, where they had been under British rule. They moved to what would become the Transvaal, Free State, and Natal territories. The Orange Free State, the Natalia Republic, and the South African Republic were all established by the Boers.
The discovery of gold in the interior in 1884 and diamonds in 1867 sparked the Mineral Revolution, which in turn spurred immigration and economic expansion. The aboriginal people’s subjection by the British was exacerbated by this. Relationships between Europeans and the indigenous people as well as between the Boers and the British were influenced by the fight for control of these significant economic resources.
The South African Republic’s President Thomas François Burgers declared war on the Pedi people on May 16, 1876. On August 1, 1876, King Sekhukhune was able to overcome the army. The Lydenburg Volunteer Corps. launched another attempt, but it was again thwarted. The two sides signed a peace pact in Botshabelo on February 16, 1877. The Burgers were replaced by Paul Kruger when the Boers failed to defeat the Pedi, and the South African Republic was annexed by the British. Three British invasions were successfully repelled in 1878 and 1879 until Garnet Wolseley’s force of 2,000 British soldiers, 10,000 Swazis, and Boers conquered Sekhukhune in November 1879.
The British and the Zulu Kingdom battled each other in the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. It was believed that the African kingdoms, tribal regions, and Boer republics in South Africa may succeed by political action and military operations, after Lord Carnarvon’s successful introduction of federation in Canada. Henry Bartle Frere, the British High Commissioner, was dispatched to South Africa in 1874 to initiate these preparations. The army of Zululand and the autonomous nations of the Boers were two of the challenges. At the Battle of Isandlwana, the Zulu people beat the British. The Zulu nation’s independence was ultimately terminated as a result of Zululand’s defeat in the war.
Boer Wars
During the First Boer War (1880–1881), the Boer republics successfully repelled British incursions by employing guerilla warfare techniques that were appropriate for the terrain. In the Second Boer War (1899–1902), the British returned with increased numbers, more experience, and a new strategy. Despite suffering significant losses from Boer attrition warfare, they were ultimately successful in part because of scorched earth tactics like concentration camps, where 27,000 Boer civilians perished from a mix of disease and neglect.
Urban population growth in South Africa began to accelerate by the end of the 19th century. Dutch-descended Boer farmers, who had left the ruined Transvaal and Orange Free State regions, were part of the white urban low class after the war’s devastation.
Independence
White South African anti-British sentiment centered on independence. While various regulations, such as the Native Location Act of 1879 and the pass law system, were passed to regulate the settlement and movement of indigenous people, racial segregation remained primarily unofficial during the Dutch and British colonial eras.
After four years of negotiations and eight years after the Second Boer War ended, the South Africa Act of 1909 established the Union of South Africa on May 31, 1910, granting nominal independence. The Orange Free State Republic and the former Cape, Transvaal, and Natal colonies were all part of the union, which was a dominion. Black people owned just 7% of the nation at the time, and the Natives Land Act of 1913 severely curtailed their ability to do so. A little increase in the territory set aside for indigenous peoples was later made.
With the adoption of the Statute of Westminster in 1931, which eliminated the last remaining legislative authority held by the UK Parliament, the union attained complete independence from the UK. Up until then, only three other African nations had achieved independence: Egypt, Ethiopia, and Libya. In an effort to bring Afrikaners and English-speaking whites together, the South African Party and National Party united to establish the United Party in 1934. The union’s participation in World War II as an ally of the United Kingdom, a move many National Party members opposed, caused the party to split in 1939.
The Period of Apartheid
The National Party came to power through election in 1948. Under Dutch and British colonial control, racial segregation had already been reinforced. The nationalist government created privileges and restrictions for each of the three races—Whites, Blacks, Indians, and Colored persons (those of mixed race)—using Canada’s Indian Act as a basis. Less than 20% of white people ruled the far larger black majority. Apartheid is the term used to refer to the officially sanctioned segregation. The majority of Black Africans continued to face disadvantages in nearly all spheres of life, including life expectancy, housing, education, and income, while Whites in Africa had the greatest quality of living, matching that of First World Western nations.
Adopted by the Congress Alliance in 1955, the Freedom Charter called for the abolition of racial discrimination and the creation of a nonracial society.
Following a narrowly successful referendum (available only to white voters), the country became a republic on May 31, 1961. The majority of votes were cast against the proposition in the British-dominated province of Natal. Charles Robberts Swart, the final Governor-General of South Africa, took over as state president, replacing Elizabeth II as the country’s monarch. As a compromise to the Westminster system, the president was still chosen by parliament and had little authority until P. W. Botha’s Constitution Act of 1983 abolished the prime minister’s position and established a new, distinct “strong presidency” that answered to the legislature. South Africa left the Commonwealth of Nations in 1961 under pressure from other nations, and it returned in 1994.
The government passed legislation allowing apartheid to continue despite opposition to it coming from both inside and outside the nation. Anti-apartheid groups including the African National Congress (ANC), the Azanian People’s Organization, and the Pan-Africanist Congress engaged in guerilla warfare and urban sabotage as the security forces cracked down on internal opposition. This led to a broad outbreak of violence. Aside from sporadic inter-factional confrontations, the three competing resistance factions also competed for internal influence. Due to South Africa’s discriminatory practices, apartheid grew more divisive and numerous nations started to avoid doing business with it. International sanctions and the divestiture of shares by foreign investors were eventually added to this list of actions.
Following apartheid
Signed by Mangosuthu Buthelezi and Harry Schwarz in 1974, the Mahlabatini Declaration of Faith was the first agreement of its kind between black and white political leaders in South Africa, and it established the values of equality for everyone and a peaceful transition of power. In the end, F.W. de Klerk initiated bilateral talks with Nelson Mandela in 1993 to negotiate a change in administration and policy.
When the National Party government overturned the ban on the ANC and other political organizations in 1990, it marked a significant milestone in the fight against discrimination. Nelson Mandela was freed from jail following his 27-year sabotage sentence. There was a period of discussion after that. After a 1992 vote yielded white support, the government proceeded with discussions aimed at bringing an end to apartheid. In 1994, South Africa conducted its first universal elections, which were decisively won by the African National Congress (ANC). Since then, it has remained in charge. The nation joined the Southern African Development Community and returned to the Commonwealth of Nations.
South Africa’s unemployment rate remained high after apartheid. Though many Black Americans have become middle-class or upper-class, according to official measurements, the total rate of unemployment for Black Americans fell dramatically between 1994 and 2003, although it improved for Black Americans generally. White poverty has grown, a phenomenon that was formerly uncommon. The government found it difficult to maintain the budgetary and monetary restraint necessary to guarantee wealth redistribution and economic expansion. The UN Human Development Index increased gradually until the middle of the 1990s when it declined from 1995 to 2005 and then increased again to its highest point in 1995 in 2013.
The decline may be mostly attributed to the South African HIV/AIDS epidemic, which caused life expectancy to drop from 62 years in 1992 to 53 years in 2005, as well as the government’s inaction in the early stages of the pandemic.
Riots in May 2008 claimed more than sixty lives. Over 100,000 individuals, according to the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, were evicted from their houses. A third of the victims were South African nationals, however, the targets were mostly refugees seeking asylum as well as legal and illegal migrants.
The South African Migration Project found in a 2006 poll that more South Africans than any other national group are against immigration. Over 200,000 migrants requested for asylum in South Africa in 2008, according to the UN High Commissioner for migrants, nearly four times as many as the previous year. Although many also came from Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia, the majority of these individuals were from Zimbabwe.
2018 saw Jacob Zuma step down as president on February 14. South Africa has been led by ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa since February 15. Just over a month after President Jacob Zuma announced his resignation on March 16, 2018, National Director of Public Prosecutions Shaun Abrahams declared that Zuma would be prosecuted on 16 criminal counts once more, including two counts of corruption, 12 counts of fraud, and one each of racketeering and money laundering, similar to the charges in the 2006 indictment. When he did show up for court in February 2020, a warrant was issued for his arrest. He was found guilty of contempt of court in 2021 and given a 15-month jail term.
Supporters of Zuma retaliated with protests that resulted in 354 fatalities from rioting, looting, vandalism, and general violence.
Since 2020, South Africa has been experiencing a severe political and economic crisis. An increasing number of foreign organizations, corporations, and political figures have issued warnings that the nation faces the possibility of becoming a failed state as a result of high unemployment, slow economic growth, low business investment, an increase in violent crime, disorder, political corruption, and state capture. Since 2007, the nation has been experiencing an energy crisis that has led to frequent rolling blackouts of power because of loadshedding. The International Monetary Fund claims that state capture and “massive corruption” are the problems facing South Africa.
The Zondo Commission, which was founded in 2018 to look into claims of state capture and corruption, published its findings in 2022. It discovered widespread corruption in law enforcement, intelligence services, and the civil service, as well as at all levels of government, including Transnet, Eskom, and Denel. It recorded proof of money laundering, racketeering, bribery, bribery, systemic corruption, and state capture. It looked into the African National Congress party and Jacob Zuma, concluding that because of their direct support of the Gupta family, they were involved in state capture. The Commission calculated that almost R57 billion had been “tainted” by state capture in overall state spending.
More than 97% of the R57 billion came from Transnet and Eskom. Out of these funds, the Gupta enterprise received at least R15 billion. The total loss to the state is difficult to quantify, but would far exceed that R15 billion.”
Regarding the escalating conflict and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, South Africa has remained neutral. As part of the Israel-Hamas conflict, South Africa filed an official action with the International Court of Justice on December 29, 2023, claiming that Israel had perpetrated and was continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Senior Hamas commanders, who are in charge of the October 7th killing in Israel, have visited South Africa on many occasions.
Though it continued to be the only major party in the South African Parliament, the African National Congress saw its percentage of the national vote drop below 50% after the general elections of 2024—the first such drop since the end of Apartheid. President Ramaphosa struck an agreement with the Democratic Alliance, the former major opposition party, and other smaller parties, announcing the formation of the first national unity cabinet since Nelson Mandela’s Cabinet. The National Assembly reelected Ramaphosa for a second term in office, defeating Julius Malema, the head of the Economic Freedom Fighters.
Economy
The economy of South Africa is diverse. The most industrialized and technologically sophisticated country in Africa, with the greatest economy on the continent, is South Africa. It is the economic hub of the continent. In comparison to other sub-Saharan African nations, it also boasts a comparatively high GDP per capita, ranking 95th in 2023 at US$16,080 at purchasing power parity. In spite of this, South Africa continues to suffer from a comparatively high percentage of unemployment and poverty, and according to the Gini coefficient, it is among the top ten nations in the world for income inequality.
In terms of overall wealth, South Africa is placed 40th, making it the second wealthiest nation in Africa. However, when it comes to private wealth, the country’s population is the richest in Africa, with the richest people coming from Egypt ($307 billion) and Nigeria ($228 billion).
A total of 13.8 million individuals (25% of the population) live in food poverty, while about 55.5% (30.3 million people) of the population live below the federal upper poverty level.
The Gini coefficient was 0.63 in 2015 compared to 0.61 in 1996, and 71% of net wealth was owned by 10% of the population in 1996, whereas only 7% was held by 60% of the people in 2015.
South Africa lacks a robust informal sector, in contrast to the majority of the world’s impoverished nations. In contrast to about three-quarters of occupations in Indonesia and around half in Brazil and India, just 15% of jobs in South Africa are in the unorganized sector. The comprehensive welfare system in South Africa is the reason for this discrepancy, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Only Botswana has a greater disparity between per capita GDP and Human Development Index ranking than South Africa, according to World Bank data.
After 1994, governmental finances were stabilized, inflation was reduced, and some foreign capital was drawn in, but growth was remained below average. The year 2004 saw a notable acceleration in economic development, accompanied by a rise in capital creation and employment. The government expanded the role of state-owned businesses (SOEs) under Jacob Zuma’s presidency.
Among the largest SOEs are the railroad and port monopolies Transnet and South African Airways (SAA), the electric power monopoly Eskom, and others. During the 20 years prior to 2015, SAA, one of these SOEs that has not been profitable, needed bailouts totaling R30 billion ($2.03 billion). Apart from other African nations, Germany, the United States, China, Japan, the United Kingdom, and Spain are South Africa’s main commercial partners abroad.
South Africa was classified as the 58th safest tax haven in the world by the 2020 Financial Secrecy Index.
In South Africa, the agricultural sector employs around 10% of the working population, which is low when compared to other African countries. It also generates job opportunities for temporary workers and accounts for 2.6% of the country’s GDP. Only 13.5% of the area can be exploited for crop production due to its aridity, and only 3% of it is regarded as high potential land.
Based on factors like the nation’s economic potential, labor market, cost-effectiveness, infrastructure, business friendliness, and foreign direct investment strategy, fDi Intelligence selected South Africa as the top African Country of the Future in August 2013.
Mining
Mining has long been a major industry in South Africa. South Africa was the world’s top producer of gold until 2006, when it produced 205 metric tons (mt) of the metal in 2008, compared to 1,000 metric tons in 1970 (almost 80% of the world’s mine supply at the time).
By the end of 2009, South Africa’s gold mining industry had experienced a sharp decline. In spite of this, the nation maintains 6,000 tons of gold reserves, ranks fifth in the world for gold output, and is home to an abundance of mineral resources. The Mponeng Gold Mine in South Africa is the world’s deepest gold mine, at a depth of about 4,000 meters. It is the biggest producer of vermiculite, platinum, vanadium, manganese, and chrome in the world.
It is the world’s second-biggest producer of zirconium, rutile, palladium, and ilmenite. It is the third-biggest exporter of coal in the world. It is the world’s third-largest supplier of iron ore to China, the country that uses the most of the resources; in 2012, it surpassed India in this regard.
Tourism
South Africa is a popular vacation destination, with the tourism sector contributing 2.34% of GDP in 2019 after falling precipitously to 0.81% of GDP in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic-related travel ban. The official tourism organization in South Africa is in charge of promoting the nation internationally. The World Travel & Tourism Council estimates that in 2012, the tourism sector supported 10.3% of employment in South Africa and directly added ZAR 102 billion to the country’s GDP. South African Tourism is the official national marketing organization of the South African government, tasked with promoting travel to the country both domestically and internationally.
Travelers from within and outside the country may choose from a broad range of attractions in South Africa, including its stunning natural scenery, wildlife reserves, rich cultural legacy, and well-known wines. Several national parks, notably the vast Kruger National Park in the north of the country, the beaches and coasts of the KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape provinces, and large cities like Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Durban are some of the most well-liked travel destinations.
The most recent Tourism and Migration Survey from Statistics South Africa shows that in August 2017, about 3,5 million travelers entered the nation through its ports of entry. The US, UK, Germany, the Netherlands, and France were the top five foreign nations with the most visitors visiting South Africa. The majority of travelers from other parts of Africa who arrived in South Africa were from SADC nations. At 31%, Zimbabwe is at the top of the list, followed by Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, and Eswatini. Furthermore, about thirty percent of visitors to South Africa were from Nigeria.
Traditions
There are still a sizable number of black South Africans who live mostly in poverty in rural areas. Cultural traditions are strongest among these people; traditional culture has waned as Black people have grown more urbanized and Westernized. The lives of members of the middle class, which has previously been dominated by white people but is increasingly made up of black, Indian, and colored people, are comparable to those of individuals in Western Europe, North America, and Australasia in many ways.
Popular culture
Being one of Africa’s principal media hubs, South Africa boasts a sizable media industry. English is the most widely used language, even if the wide variety of publications and broadcasters reflects the diversity of the country as a whole. All eleven of the other official languages are, however, somewhat represented.
The music of South Africa is very diverse. It’s said that black artists have created two distinct styles—Kwanto and Amapiano—that have taken over radio, television, and publications. Brenda Fassie is a notable example; she rose to stardom with the English-language song “Weekend Special”. Ladysmith Black Mambazo is one of the more well-known traditional performers; the Soweto String Quartet plays classical music with an African influence. Jazz greats Hugh Masekela, Jonas Gwangwa, Abdullah Ibrahim, Miriam Makeba, Jonathan Butler, Chris McGregor, and Sathima Bea Benjamin are among the many notable artists from South Africa. A variety of musical styles are represented in Afrikaans music; examples include the punk rock group Fokofpolisiekar, the singer-songwriter Jeremy Loops, and the modern Steve Hofmeyr.
Many international films have been made about South Africa, despite the fact that few South African films are well-known outside of the country. Possibly the most well-known movie to include South Africa in recent memory is Chappie, which will be the sequel to District 9. Other noteworthy exceptions are U-Carmen e-Khayelitsha, which took home the Golden Bear at the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival, and Tsotsi, which took home the Academy Award for Foreign Language Film at the 78th Academy Awards in 2006. The Endless River, directed by Oliver Hermanus, was the first South African film to be chosen for the Venice Film Festival in 2015.
Literature
Literature from South Africa has a distinct social and political past. Solomon Thekiso Plaatje’s Mhudi, published in 1930, was one of the first widely read books written by a black author in an African language. Urban Black culture gained a voice in the 1950s when Drum magazine developed into a hub of political satire, fiction, and essays.
Alan Paton, a well-known white South African novelist, released Cry, the Beloved Country in 1948. In 1991, Nadine Gordimer was named the first South African recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. In 2003, J.M. Coetzee was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. According to the Swedish Academy, which bestowed the prize, Coetzee “innumerable guises portrays the surprising involvement of the outsider.”
Because of his participation in the anti-apartheid guerilla movement, Breyten Breytenbach was imprisoned. Following the publication of his book A Dry White Season, André Brink became the first Afrikaner author to face official prohibition.
Food
All populations in South Africa enjoy a wide range of dishes from many cultures and origins, and these delicacies are particularly promoted to visitors who want to try them all. The majority of the food is meat-based, and it gave rise to the braai, a variant on the barbecue that is uniquely South African social gatherings. Major wine production has also grown in South Africa; some of the greatest vineyards are located in the valleys of Paarl, Franschhoek, Barrydale, and Stellenbosch.
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