South Africa
A temperature of -20.1 degrees Celsius was recorded at Buffelsfontein in the Eastern Cape in 2013. Far to the north, near Upington in the Kalahari, the mercury once reached 51.7 degrees Celsius in 1948. South Africa holds both extremes inside a single set of borders. This is the southernmost country in Africa, with a coastline of 2798 kilometres bending around two oceans, the South Atlantic and the Indian. It wraps entirely around the small kingdom of Lesotho and touches Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Eswatini.
More than 63 million people live here, making it the sixth-most populated country in Africa. It has been called the rainbow nation, a phrase that gained currency in the wake of apartheid to capture its sheer variety of cultures, languages, and religions. The country carries an official name in 12 official languages. It also carries a contradiction. Since the end of apartheid, quality of life has substantially improved for non-white citizens, yet about 32% of the population remains unemployed.
How did a place this divided come to hold the largest economy on the continent? Why does a country that voluntarily gave up nuclear weapons still store enriched uranium? What turned a Dutch supply station into one of the most unequal societies on Earth? The Gini coefficient here sits at 0.67, the highest in the world. The answers run from caves that hold humanity's oldest bones to a 2024 election that broke a thirty-year political grip.
The Taung Child was the first hominin fossil discovered in Africa, found near Taung in 1924. It belongs to a region that holds some of the oldest archaeological and human-fossil sites in the world. In Gauteng, a cluster of caves known as the Cradle of Humankind has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and Sterkfontein within it ranks among the richest sources of hominin fossils anywhere.
Australopithecus africanus came first, followed by Australopithecus sediba, Homo ergaster, Homo erectus, and others, down to Homo naledi and modern humans. Various hominid species existed here from about three million years ago. Modern humans have inhabited Southern Africa for at least 170,000 years, leaving pebble tools scattered through the Vaal River valley.
The first known people of the region were the indigenous San and Khoikhoi, hunter-gatherers who in the case of the Khoikhoi also kept livestock. They may descend from an early dispersal of modern humans that reached Southern Africa before 150,000 years ago. Bantu-speaking settlers, iron-using farmers and herders, expanded from West Africa and were present south of the Limpopo River by the 4th or 5th century. The earliest ironworks in modern-day KwaZulu-Natal date from around 1050. The southernmost of these groups, the Xhosa, eventually reached the Great Fish River, carrying linguistic traits borrowed from the Khoisan tongues.
Around 1220, the elite of a community called K2 climbed to settle the flat top of Mapungubwe Hill, in the Limpopo-Shashe Basin, while the rest of the population spread below. Rainmaking shaped a kind of sacred kingship, and rainmaking sites such as Ratho Kroonkop dot the surrounding land. By 1250 the capital of the Mapungubwe Kingdom held 5,000 people and the state stretched across 30,000 square kilometres, grown rich on Indian Ocean trade.
Mapungubwe collapsed around 1300 for reasons still unknown. Trade routes shifted north from the Limpopo to the Zambezi, and Great Zimbabwe rose as the hill emptied and its people scattered. In the Soutpansberg, contact between early Shona arrivals, later Shona, and Sotho-speakers across the 15th to 17th centuries gave birth to the Venda language and identity.
A splinter group from the Rozvi Empire migrated south in the late 17th century. Known as the Singo, they settled at Dzata, which became the capital of the Venda Kingdom, and brought the whole Soutpansberg under their control. When trade routes drifted south in the late 18th century, that state fell apart too. The strongest dynasties left standing were the Ramabulana Singo in the west and the Tshivhase and Mphaphuli Singo in the east.
Bartolomeu Dias named it Cabo das Tormentas, the Cape of Storms. In 1487 the Portuguese explorer led the first European voyage to land in southern Africa, coming ashore at Walfisch Bay on the 4th of December. Storms after the 8th of January 1488 drove him out of sight of land, and he rounded the southernmost point of Africa without ever seeing it. King John II later renamed the place Cabo da Boa Esperanca, the Cape of Good Hope, because it opened the way to the riches of the East Indies. Dias's feat was immortalised in Luis de Camoes's 1572 epic poem, Os Lusiadas.
Vasco Da Gama set sail from Lisbon in 1497 and became the first European to reach India in 1498, rounding the Cape of Good Hope and opening oceanic trade between Europe and Asia. He bypassed what became South Africa, landing instead in present-day Mozambique.
Dutch interest sharpened after 1647, when two shipwrecked employees of the Dutch East India Company survived months at the Cape on fresh water, meat, and crops grown in fertile soil. They reported home that the Cape could serve as a warehouse and garden for passing ships. In 1652, Jan van Riebeeck established a station at the Cape of Good Hope, the seed of Cape Town. Dutch traders brought thousands of enslaved people from present-day Indonesia, Madagascar, and eastern Africa, and from the mingling of Free Burghers, enslaved people, and indigenous peoples a new group emerged, the Cape Coloureds.
The Mfecane swept through the early 1800s as a heightened period of conflict, migration, and state formation among native groups. International trade, environmental instability, and European colonisation tangled together. The Ndwandwe defeated the Mthethwa, which splintered, and from one of those fragments rose Shaka of the amaZulu. The Zulu crushed the Ndwandwe but were repelled by the Gaza Empire forming alongside them.
Dutch settlers chafing under British control left the Cape Colony in migrant groups called Voortrekkers, pushing toward the future Natal, Free State, and Transvaal. After defeating the Zulu Kingdom at the Battle of Blood River on the 16th of December 1838, they founded the Boer republics: the Natalia Republic, the South African Republic, and the Orange Free State.
Diamonds discovered in 1867 and gold in 1884 triggered the Mineral Revolution, drawing immigration, deepening British subjugation of indigenous peoples, and straining relations between Boers and British. On the 16th of May 1876, President Thomas Francois Burgers of the South African Republic declared war on the Pedi people, and King Sekhukhune defeated his army on the 1st of August 1876. The Boers' failure against the Pedi helped bring Paul Kruger to power and prompted British annexation of the republic. Garnet Wolseley finally beat Sekhukhune in November 1879 with 2,000 British soldiers, Boers, and 10,000 Swazis. That same year, the Zulu defeated the British at Isandlwana but lost the wider Anglo-Zulu War, and their independence ended with it.
The Second Boer War of 1899 to 1902 saw 27,000 Boer civilians die in concentration camps from disease and neglect, as British scorched-earth tactics ground down Boer attrition warfare. Out of that devastation, Boer farmers fled into the cities and formed an urban class of poor whites. The South Africa Act 1909 created the Union of South Africa on the 31st of May 1910, joining the Cape, Transvaal, Natal, and Orange Free State.
The Natives Land Act of 1913 severely restricted land ownership by black South Africans, who controlled only 7% of the country at that point. In 1931 the Statute of Westminster made the union fully sovereign from the United Kingdom. The National Party was elected to power in 1948 and built apartheid, classifying all people into three races and assigning each different rights and limits. Whites enjoyed living standards comparable to First World nations while the black majority fell behind in income, education, housing, and life expectancy.
The Freedom Charter, adopted in 1955 by the multi-racial Congress Alliance, demanded a non-racial society. On the 31st of May 1961 a referendum open only to white voters narrowly turned the country into a republic, and South Africa withdrew from the Commonwealth of Nations that same year. As resistance hardened, the African National Congress, the Azanian People's Organisation, and the Pan-Africanist Congress turned to guerrilla warfare and sabotage. Foreign governments began boycotting business with the regime, escalating into international sanctions and the divestment of foreign-held assets.
The Mahlabatini Declaration of Faith, signed by Mangosuthu Buthelezi and Harry Schwarz in 1974, was the first agreement by black and white South African leaders to enshrine a peaceful transition of power and equality for all. In 1990 the National Party government lifted the ban on the ANC and released Nelson Mandela after 27 years in prison for sabotage and treason. F.W. de Klerk opened bilateral discussions with Mandela in 1993.
A 1992 referendum among white voters approved further negotiations, and South Africa held its first universal elections in 1994, won overwhelmingly by the ANC. The country rejoined the Commonwealth of Nations and joined the Southern African Development Community. Relative political stability followed, broken by periodic violence, including the 2008 xenophobic riots that killed over 60 people and drove an estimated 100,000 from their homes.
Widespread corruption and state capture marked the presidency of Jacob Zuma, whose brief imprisonment for contempt of court in 2021 sparked unrest that left 354 people dead. The ANC's dominance eroded through the 2000s until it failed to win a parliamentary majority in the 2024 general election, taking 40% of the vote and 159 seats. The Democratic Alliance won 87 seats, while Zuma's new uMkhonto weSizwe party won 58 and the Economic Freedom Fighters, founded by Julius Malema, won 39. President Cyril Ramaphosa then formed a Government of National Unity with the DA and others.
South Africa was the world's leading gold producer for much of the 20th century, peaking at nearly 1,000 tonnes in 1970, two-thirds of all global production. No country has matched that scale since. The country still holds the world's largest reserves of platinum group metals, roughly 88% of the global total, plus about 80% of manganese and 72% of chromite. Its mineral reserves are valued at over US$2.5 trillion, and it ranks in the global top 10 for 16 different commodities.
The land yields wealth above ground too. South Africa is the world's largest producer of mohair and ostrich meat, supplying 70% of global demand, and the largest exporter of fine wool. It is the second-largest citrus exporter after Spain, and indigenous Rooibos and Honeybush teas grow nowhere else. Roughly half of its agricultural output is exported, reaching a record US$13.7 billion in 2024.
This is the most industrialised, technologically advanced, and diversified economy on the continent, with nominal GDP exceeding US$400 billion. Yet around 55% of South Africans live below the upper-bound poverty line while the wealthiest 10% hold over 70% of national wealth. From April 2017 to March 2018, an average of 57 murders were recorded per day. The country runs the world's largest private security industry, more than 2.5 million registered personnel, exceeding the police and military combined.
There is invention amid the inequality. Christiaan Barnard performed the first human-to-human heart transplant at Groote Schuur Hospital in December 1967. The country built six nuclear devices between 1980 and 1990, then became the first nation to voluntarily dismantle its arsenal in 1991. The enriched uranium from that programme still sits at the Pelindaba Nuclear Research Centre, now turned to medical isotopes and civilian research.
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Common questions
What is the capital of South Africa?
South Africa has no single legally defined capital and splits its government across three cities. Pretoria is the administrative capital, Cape Town is the legislative capital as the seat of Parliament, and Bloemfontein is regarded as the judicial capital.
Why is South Africa called the rainbow nation?
South Africa is called the rainbow nation to describe its diversity of cultures, languages, and religions, a phrase that gained currency especially in the wake of apartheid. The country carries an official name in 12 official languages.
When did apartheid end in South Africa?
Apartheid ended with South Africa's first universal elections in 1994, won overwhelmingly by the African National Congress. The National Party government had begun dismantling it in 1990 by lifting the ban on the ANC and releasing Nelson Mandela after 27 years in prison.
Why is South Africa considered one of the most unequal countries in the world?
South Africa has a Gini coefficient of 0.67, the highest in the world, making it the most unequal society. Around 55% of South Africans live below the upper-bound poverty line while the wealthiest 10% hold over 70% of national wealth, and about 32% of the population is unemployed.
Did South Africa ever have nuclear weapons?
South Africa is the only African nation to have successfully developed nuclear weapons, covertly assembling six operational devices between 1980 and 1990. It voluntarily dismantled the arsenal in 1991, becoming the first country to relinquish its nuclear capability.
What is South Africa's economy known for?
South Africa has the largest economy in Africa by nominal GDP, exceeding US$400 billion, and is the most industrialised and diversified on the continent. It was the world's leading gold producer for much of the 20th century, peaking at nearly 1,000 tonnes in 1970, and holds the world's largest reserves of platinum group metals.