Fact File about the genral facts of South Africa

Lesotho (which is located within South Africa)

â—¦ the capital city is Pretoria which is located at the province of Gauteng

â—¦ the country covers a area of 1.223.201 square kilometers

Population:

â—¦ in South Africa there live around 43,300,000 people

â—¦ because of people with many different origins the country is often called

"Rainbow Nation" (a nation with varied origins, colourful like a rainbow)

â—¦ there are four major ethnic groups: the Blacks (77.8%), the Whites (10.5%),

the Coloured (8.9%) & the Indians (2.6%)

â—¦ counted among the ethinc group of the blacks are many native tribal groups like the biggest one the Nguni (two thirds of the black population)

â—¦ the group of the Nguni consist of several smaller groups like the Zulus & the Xhosa

â—¦ the Zulus are known for all their fights & battles against other tribes or against the white settlers for protecting their land -> today they are often represented in the polticies

â—¦ the Xhosa are known for their interest in education & they tried to fight against social imbalances with reason instead of violence

â—¦ the whites consist of two larger groups: the Afrikaners & the British

â—¦ the Afrikaners are descendants of the first Dutch settlers & the British of the

early British colonists â—¦ because both groups thought that they have the right to colonise and cultivate

the country there were many battles between them

â—¦ part of the ethnic group of the coloureds are all people from mixed marriages that means their parents are from different ethnic groups

â—¦ in the time of the apartheid it was very hard for those because they got criminated by both ethnic groups and they had no group they belong to

Language:

â—¦ there eleven offical languages

â—¦ the reason why there are so many languages spoken is that there are many

different nationalities and tribes in the country

â—¦ the most spoken language with 23.5% of the population is Zulu

â—¦ followed by Xhosa (17.6%), Afrikaans (13.7%), Sepedi (9.2 %) & English

(8.6%)

â—¦ the less spoken languages of the population are Tshivenda (2.8%), Siswati (2.5%) & Ndebele (1.5%)

â—¦ English is the only language spoken in all parts of South Africa and in all areas of life

History:

â—¦ big parts of the South African history is the time of the colonism and the apartheid

â—¦ South Africa was discovered by the portugese explorer Bartholomeu Diaz in the year 1488

â—¦ in the year 1652 the country became a Dutch colony under the rule of Jan van Riebeek, in this time it came to some frontier wars between the Dutch and native tribes like the Xhosa

â—¦ in 1795 the cape became a British colony -> Dutch people were not content being under the rule of the British -> the Dutch founded the independent Boer republics of Orange Free State & Transvaal

â—¦ between 1880 and 1881 there was the first war (Boer War) between Britain and the Dutch republics followed by the Second boer War between the years 1899 and 1902

â—¦ in 1910 the Union of South Africa was formed which is an independent country including the Dutch republics & the British areas

â—¦ with the Union of South Africa the discrimination against the Blacks started -> from now on the Blacks were not allowed to get elected to parliment or to apply for skilled jobs

â—¦ because of very bad conditions some Blacks formed the African National Congress (ANC) in 1912

â—¦ the apartheid started in 1948 when the National Party won the election

â—¦ the idea behind that was having a white country that means no mixed race

people

â—¦ therefore they sent the different ethnic groups to differnt areas within the

country (these areas were called "homelands") and the Whites stayed were

they were living

â—¦ the living conditions in the homelands were very bad because there was not

enough space for living and growing food and the there were not enough

public facilities like hospitals, schools or clean water

â—¦ the government tried to seperate whites and blacks by having public facilities

for only whites or only blacks e.g. public transport

â—¦ the discontent of the blacks led to the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960 which

started with black people demonstrating against the aprtheid and ended up with many blacks killed by the whites & the government banned organistions like ANC -> further demonstration ended up like that aswell -> the violence was increasing in this time

â—¦ the international community tried to stop the apartheid government by boycotting their economic and excluding them from all cultural arrangements -> the boycott did not help

â—¦ however the people started realsing that the industry was suffering from the apartheid policy because they did not have enough skilled workers in the areas of the whites

â—¦ the end of the apartheid was when president Botha stepped down and the new president F.W de Klerk stopped the aprtheid policy

â—¦ in 1991 nearly all apartheid laws were disestablished and organisations like the ANC were legalised again

â—¦ on the 27th of April in 1994 there was the first election where everyone of every ethnic group could vote