South Africa Facts

South Africa is located at the southern-most tip of the African continent. The country is bordered by two oceans - to the east, the warm Indian Ocean and to the west, the Atlantic Ocean. South Africa has 3000 kilometres of coastline. The east coast is washed by the warm Mozambique current flowing south from the Equator. The west coast is washed by the cold waters of the Benguela current moving northwards from Antarctica.
South Africa is 1 219 090 km2 which is bigger than Germany, France and Italy combined.
Because of its size, wide range of latitudes, neighbouring ocean currents and notable variety of topography, South Africa offers reliable, warm holiday destinations in a variety of locales all year round.
The country is divided into nine provinces, namely Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Limpopo, Free State, North West, Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Kwazulu Natal and Northern Cape. The capital of South Africa is Pretoria in Gauteng province. Parliament is located in Cape Town and the judicial capital is Bloemfontein in the Free State province.

Topography

Southern Africa is shaped like an enormous shield, mostly consisting of a huge inland plateau that is edged by a steep escarpment.
Much of these inland highlands are flat, with the exception of the great mountains of the Kwazulu Natal Midlands. The grandeur of this range is evident from the height of the tallest peak in the region, the mighty Thabana Ntlenyana, which is 4m higher than the Matterhorn in the Swiss Alps. These mountains are also called the Drakensberg, a word which in Afrikaasn means "Dragon Mountains". These are much younger mountains than those of the Cape, of which Table Mountain is the best-known feature.
The terms "Highveld" and "Lowveld" apply to two distinct inland regions: the Highveld being the elevated central plateau forming much of the interior, reaching altitude of some 2000m. The Lowveld refers to the lower altitude regions of the country further north towards the Limpopo River Valley, which forms the international border with Zimbabwe.

Climate

South Africa lies within the high pressure, sub-tropical belt. This, combined with its varied landscape, the size of the southern African landmass, and the height of the interior regions, creates a wide variety of climates that suit just about every need at any time of the year.
Dry, warm-to-hot summers with cold, dry winters are experienced in Gauteng, the Northern Cape, The North West and Free State.
Hot, humid summers with balmy, warm winters are characteristic of Mpumalanga, Limpopo and Kwazulu-Natal.
A Mediterranean type climate, with warm-to-hot, balmy summers and chilly winters with rain are what visitors can expect in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape.
Snow does fall in some parts of South Africa, but usually only on the highest peaks.

People and culture

The San
"The first South Africans" were the san, also sometimes called Bushmen (though this term has overtones of the institutionalised racism of the past). These people are indigenous hunter-gatherers who suffered decimation in the early days of colonisation in the Cape. Remarkably, they survive in small pockets around the country. Their unique language and fantastic survival skills have received belated recognition in South Africa's post-1994 democracy. Steps are now being taken to attend to land claims, made by the San, together with other social upliftment programmes.

The Nguni people
The Nguni form the bloodstock of most of the African cultural groupings of modern South Africa. These communities originated in Africa's Equatorial belt and moved southwards in the 14th century into the San's territory, bringing with them the cultures of iron-mongering, cattle husbandry and cultivation seen throughout Africa. These populations gave rise to later political groupings, for example the Zulu (predominant in Kwazulu-Natal) and the Xhosa (predominant in the Eastern Cape). Even today, people of Nguni origin have much in common culturally and linguistically, and can often understand and speak each other's languages.

European and Asian immigrants
The Dutch arrived during the 17th century, followed by the British at the dawn of the 18th century. The Dutch immigrants formed the great trading entity - the Dutch East India Company - and did not seek territorial gain but fresh fruit and vegetables for their ships. Their Asian headquarters was in the Indies and they brought with them Muslim slaves from Bali, Malaysia, India and Java. This slave community was the origin of today's highly distinctive Cape Malay people, who have added richly to South Africa's culture, cuisine and language. In addition, the immigrants include the many Indians who have settled mostly around Durban, and a large Chinese population.

The British
A second colonising force took over the Cape in the early 18002 - the British. They added a new and extremely influential layer to the cultural and political identity of southern Africa.

Other European immigrants
Seeking economic and religious freedom from wars and persecution of Europe, many refugees flocked to South Africa in the 19th and 20th Centuries. A substantial number of Jewish people from Eastern Europe sought sanctuary in South Africa. And in the 20th Century, significant numbers of Italians and Greeks and new waves of British people immigrated. All have left their mark on the "Rainbow Nation" and are now melding together in a remarkable and unique manner.

Languages

South Africa has 11 official languages, namely Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, North Sotho, South Sotho, seSwati, seTsonga, seTswana, tshiVenda, isiXhosa and isiZulu. Other languags include Arabic, German, Gujerati, Hebrew, Hindi, Portugese and the remarkable "clicking" language of the San. English is the lingua france and is understood almost everywhere.
This fact makes travel and business a great deal easier for those who are either mother-tongue English speakers or able to speak English as an additional language.

Religion

Christianity
All the major denominations of Christianity occur in South Africa, which make up 75% of the population. This includes uniquely South African Christian-based faiths such as the Zionist and Tshembe.

Judaism
At one time South Africa had one of the largest population of Jewish people ouside the state of Israel. Many of the prominent industrialists of the 20th Century were Jewish, as indeed were many of the anti-apartheid activists prominent from the 1960s onwards.

Islam
The history of Islam in Southern Africa in an ancient one, partly because of slave traders from the Arabian peninsula who traversed Africa for centuries. In South Africa, however, Islam was the religion of the slaves imported by the Dutch East India Company from their territories in the Orient, which is why in South Africa, Islam later became the religion of the rebel, and strongly opposed apartheid.

Hinduism
The Hindu religion is found in many parts of South Africa, most noticeably in the province of Kwazulu-Natal.

Source: SA Tourism