South Africa, the southernmost country on the African continent, is renowned for its varied topography, great natural beauty, and cultural diversity. These features have made the country a favored destination for travelers since the legal ending of apartheid in 1994.
South Africa's remoteness helped reinforce the official system of apartheid for a large part of the 20th century. With that system, the government, controlled by the minority white population, enforced segregation between government-defined races in housing, education, and virtually all spheres of life, creating in effect three nations: one of whites, one of Blacks, and one of “Coloureds” (mixed-race people) and ethnic Asians.
Eventually forced to confront the untenable nature of ethnic separatism in a multicultural land, the South African government of F.W. de Klerk (1989-94) began to repeal apartheid laws. That process in turn set in motion a transition toward universal suffrage and a true electoral democracy, which culminated in the 1994 election of a government led by the Black majority under the leadership of the long-imprisoned dissident Nelson Mandela.
As this transition attests, the country has made remarkable progress in establishing social equity in a short period of time. Today South Africa enjoys a relatively stable mixed economy that draws on its fertile agricultural lands, abundant mineral resources, tourist attractions, and highly evolved intellectual capital.
Greater political equality and economic stability, however, do not necessarily mean social tranquility. South African society at the start of the 21st century continued to face steep challenges: rising crime rates, ethnic tensions, great disparities in housing and educational opportunities, and the AIDS pandemic.
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The name "South Africa" is derived from the country's geographic location at the southern tip of Africa. Upon formation, the country was named the Union of South Africa in English and Unie van Zuid-Afrika in Dutch, reflecting its origin from the unification of four British colonies. Since 1961, the long formal name in English has been the "Republic of South Africa" and Republiek van Suid-Afrika in Afrikaans.
South Africa contains some of the oldest archaeological and human-fossil sites in the world. The area, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has been branded "the Cradle of Humankind". These finds suggest that various hominid species existed in South Africa from about three million years ago, starting with Australopithecus africanus, followed by Australopithecus sediba, Homo ergaster, Homo erectus, Homo rhodesiensis, Homo helmei, Homo naledi and modern humans (Homo sapiens). Modern humans have inhabited Southern Africa for at least 170,000 years.
South Africa has three cities that serve as capitals: Pretoria (executive), Cape Town (legislative), and Bloemfontein (judicial). Johannesburg, the largest urban area in the country and a center of commerce, lies at the heart of the populous Gauteng province. Durban, a port on the Indian Ocean, is a major industrial center.
Covering an area of 1,221,037 square kilometres (471,445 square miles), the country has a population of over 63 million people (the 6th largest in Africa).
Countries Sharing Borders with South Africa
South Africa is bordered by several countries, each contributing to the region's diverse cultural and geographical landscape.
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- Namibia: Located to the northwest of South Africa.
- Botswana: Situated to the north of South Africa.
- Zimbabwe: Also to the north of South Africa.
- Mozambique: Found to the northeast and east.
- Eswatini (formerly Swaziland): Located to the northeast and east.
- Lesotho: An independent country entirely surrounded by South African territory, forming an enclave in the eastern part of the republic.
Map of Southern Africa
South Africa’s coastlines border the Indian Ocean to the southeast and the Atlantic Ocean to the southwest. The country possesses two small subantarctic islands, Prince Edward and Marion, situated in the Indian Ocean about 1,200 miles (1,900 km) southeast of Cape Town.
The former South African possession of Walvis Bay, on the Atlantic coast some 400 miles (600 km) north of the Orange River, became part of Namibia in 1994.
Overview of Southern Africa
Southern Africa, the southernmost region of the African continent, includes several countries. These countries are Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Eswatini, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
The island nation of Madagascar is excluded because of its distinct language and cultural heritage.
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The interior of Southern Africa consists of a series of undulating plateaus that cover most of South Africa, Namibia, and Botswana and extend into central Angola. Contiguous with this are uplands in Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Coastal mountains and escarpments, flanking the high ground, are found in northern Mozambique, South Africa, Namibia, Angola, and along the Mozambique-Zimbabwe border. Coastal plains abut the Indian Ocean in Mozambique and the Atlantic in Angola and Namibia.
The Kalahari desert forms the central depression of the Southern African plateau. Its elevation rises to the Great Escarpment, which flanks the plateau in an almost unbroken line from the Zambezi River to Angola.
Southern Zimbabwe and much of South Africa are within a region of scrublands and grasslands known as the veld. To the southeast of the veld is the Drakensberg range, which includes the region’s highest peak-Lesotho’s Mount Ntlenyana, at 11,424 feet (3,482 metres). In Namibia the coastal margin includes the extremely dry Namib desert, which, in the south, merges eastward into the great sandy expanse of the Kalahari.
The region is generally drained eastward toward the Indian Ocean, a pattern exemplified by the largest rivers, the Zambezi and Limpopo. The Zambezi is the longest river in the region, and its catchment includes much of Angola, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The only major river flowing into the Atlantic Ocean is the Orange, which drains parts of South Africa, Lesotho, and Namibia.
Southern African climates are seasonal, ranging from arid to semiarid and from temperate to tropical. The seasonality is an important control on plant growth and a regulator of river flows. Droughts are common in much of the region.
The semiarid plains and plateaus that cover much of the region contain animals commonly associated with the East African plains-e.g., antelopes, gazelles, zebras, elephants, and the big cats. However, different animals are found in the coastal woodlands of South Africa and in the desert regions to the north and northwest.
Many habitats have been extensively modified by agriculture, thus restricting the ranges of certain species that were formerly more widespread. There are some two dozen large national parks and game reserves in the area as well as many smaller ones, most located in the open or partially wooded plains. At the beginning of the 21st century, several transfrontier parks were opening, including Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, the first transnational park, and the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, among the largest parks in the world.
The Black peoples of Southern Africa-the overwhelming majority of the region’s population-can be divided into speakers of two language families, Khoisan and Bantu. Khoisan speakers, who have inhabited the region for millennia, have now been displaced in many areas by Bantu speakers. People of European ancestry began migrating to the region in the mid-17th century; they now constitute a sizable minority in South Africa and a much smaller population in Zimbabwe.
A Brief Historical Overview
The history of Southern Africa cannot be written as a single narrative. Shifting geographic and political boundaries and changing historiographical perspectives render this impossible. Research into local history in the late 20th and early 21st century has presented fragmented historical knowledge, and older generalizations have given way to a complex polyphony of voices as new subfields of history-gender and sexuality, health, and the environment, to name but a few-have developed.
Archaeological and historical inquiry has been extremely uneven in the countries of the Southern African subcontinent, with Namibia the least and South Africa the most intensely studied. Divided societies produce divided histories, and there is hardly an episode in the region’s history that is not now open to debate. This is as true of prehistory as of the more recent past.
The uncertainties of evidence for the long preliterate past-where a bone or potsherd can undermine previous interpretations and where recent research has subverted even terminology-are matched by conflicting representations of the colonial and postcolonial periods. In Southern Africa, history is not a set of neutrally observed and agreed-upon facts: present concerns colour interpretations of even the remote past.
For all the contestants in contemporary Southern Africa there has been a conscious struggle to control the past in order to legitimate the present and lay claim to the future. Who is telling what history for which Africa is a question that needs constantly to be addressed.
The Zulu Kingdom rose under the leadership of Shaka and covered most of present-day KwaZulu-Natal in the 19th century. Boer settlers began arriving northwards of the Orange River in the 1830s, which led to conflicts between the two peoples and resulted in the Battle of Blood River in 1838.
In the aftermath of World War II, the colonial powers came under international pressure to decolonize. The transfer to an African majority, however, was complicated by the settlement of white peoples. After an initial phase from 1945 to 1958, as a consolidation of white power, decolonization succeeded in its achievement when High Commission territories and overseas departments such as Zambia, Malawi, Botswana, Lesotho, Mauritius, Eswatini, Madagascar and the Comoros became independent states from British and French rule.
The brutal struggle for independence in the colonial territories led to the independence of new states of Angola and Mozambique as well as Southern Rhodesia, which declared independence as Zimbabwe in 1980. The denouement of South West Africa achieved independence as Namibia in 1990 and the black majority in South Africa took power after the democratic elections in 1994, therefore ending the Apartheid regime.
Southern African Development Community (SADC)
The Republic of South Africa joined the Southern African Development Community (SADC) as the 11th Member State in April 1994 and attended the SADC Summit for the first time in August 1994.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) was established in 1980 to facilitate co-operation in the region.
The terrain of Southern Africa is varied, ranging from forest and grasslands to deserts. Southern Africa is set apart from other Sub-Saharan African regions because of its mineral resources, including copper, diamonds, gold, zinc, chromium, platinum, manganese, iron ore, and coal.
Countries in Southern Africa are larger in geographic area, except three smaller landlocked states: Lesotho, Eswatini (Swaziland), and Malawi. These widespread mineral resources make this one of the wealthiest regions of Africa with the greatest potential for economic growth.
The climate of the region is broadly divided into subtropical in the north and temperate in the south, but also includes humid-subtropical, Mediterranean-climate, highland-subtropical, oceanic, desert, and semi-arid regions.
Key Economic and Social Issues
Despite the region's potential, some of the biggest factors impeding economic growth are poverty, corruption, and HIV/AIDS. In addition, South Africa and Zimbabwe in particular, face high emigration among their skilled workers leading to a significant brain drain to western economies and billions lost in human capital flight.
Generally, mining, agriculture, the public sector and tourism dominate the economies of Southern African countries, apart from South Africa which has mature and flourishing financial, retail, and construction sectors.
Over the years, some the other Southern African nations have invested in economic diversification, and invested public funds into rail, road and air transportation as part of a concerted effort through SADC to boost regional trade and improve communication and transportation.
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The countries in this region also belong to the Southern Africa Power Pool, which facilitates the development of a competitive electricity market within the SADC region and ensures sustainable energy developments through sound economic, environmental and social practices.
Several countries in the region, especially South Africa and Leshoto, struggle with very high crime rates.
Southern Africa has a wide diversity of ecoregions including grassland, bushveld, karoo, savannah and riparian zones. Even though considerable disturbance has occurred in some regions from habitat loss due to human population density or export-focused development, there remain significant numbers of various wildlife species, including white rhino, lion, African leopard, impala, kudu, blue wildebeest, vervet monkey and elephant.
Southern Africa is home to many people. It was initially populated by San, Hottentots and Pygmies in widely dispersed concentrations. Due to the Bantu expansion, the majority of African ethnic groups in this region, including the Xhosa, Zulu, Tsonga, Swazi, Northern Ndebele, Southern Ndebele, Tswana, Sotho, Pedi, Mbundu, Ovimbundu, Shona, Chaga and Sukuma, speak Bantu languages.
Christianity is by far the most common religion in the region, being the religion of the majority of the population in all countries of Southern Africa. There are also sizeable Muslim communities in Mozambique and Malawi, and smaller communities in the other countries of the region. There is also a small Hindu community in South Africa.
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