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[background-block=#fb8007][center][size=190][color=white][font=georgia]The United South African Nation[/font][/color][/size]
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[background=#003585][color=#003585]|[/color] [color=white][b]Tuiste[/b] | Home[/color] [color=#003585]|[/color][/background] [url=https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1073177][color=#ffffff][b]Regering[/b] | Government[/color][/url] [color=blue]|[/color] [url=https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1071370] [color=#ffffff][b]Verdediging[/b] | Defence[/color][/url] [color=blue]|[/color] [url=https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1077818][color=#ffffff][b]Ekonomie[/b] | Economics[/color][/url] [color=blue]|[/color] [url=https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1049004][color=#ffffff][b]Buitelandse Sake[/b] | Foreign Affairs[/color][/url] [color=blue]|[/color]  [url=https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1074376][color=white][b]Intelligensie[/b] | Intelligence[/color][/url] [color=blue]|[/color]
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[size=130][font=futura][color=white][i]E X[/color][color=#fb8007]—[/color][color=white]U N I T A T E[/color][color=#fb8007]—[/color][color=white]V I R E S[/i][/color][/size][/font]
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[size=160][font=georgia][color=white][i]E N C Y C L O P E D I A[/color][color=#fb8007]—[/color][color=white]O F[/color][color=#fb8007]—[/color][color=white]T H E[/color][color=#fb8007]—[/color][color=white]N A T I O N[/i][/font][/color][/size][/align]
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[floatright][box][center][b]The United South African Nation[/b]
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    [img]https://i.imgur.com/CWMVxon.png?1[/img]
    [b]Flag[/b]
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    [b]Motto:[/b] [i]Ex Unitate Vires[/i]
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    [img]https://i.imgur.com/69Moo4t.png[/img]
    [b]Location[/b]
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    [b]Population:[/b] 7,900,000,000
    [b]-Density:[/b] 2601 p/km2
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    [b]Capital:[/b] Cape Town
    [b]Largest City:[/b] Cape Town
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    [b]Official Language:[/b] English
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    [b]National Languages:[/b] Afrikaans, English
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    [b]Demonym:[/b] South African
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    [b]Government:[/b]  Unitary parliamentary constitutional republic
    - President: F. P. Botha
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    [b]Legislature[/b]:
    - Upper House: House of Lords
    - Lower House: House of Commons
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    [b]Establishment:[/b] from United Kingdom
    - Union
	31 May 1910
    - Self-governance
	11 December 1931
    - Republic
	31 May 1961
    - Current constitution
	4 February 1997
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    [b]Land Area:[/b] 3,036,742 km²
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    [b]GDP (nominal):[/b] $819 Trillion
    [b]GDP (nominal) per capita:[/b] $102,787
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    [b]Human Development Index :[/b] 0.7319
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    [b]Currency:[/b] South African Dollar
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    [b]Time Zone:[/b] UTC +2
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    [b]Drives on the:[/b] Left
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    [b]Calling code:[/b] +27
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    [b]Internet TLD:[/b] .suda

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    [size=200][b]The United South African Nation[/size][/b]
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    The The United Nation of South Africa commonly called South Africa, is a Unitary parliamentary constitutional republic in Southern Africa. It is bordered on the north by [nation]The Upper Balkans[/nation], on the south by The Cape of Good Hope, by the east by Indian Ocean and on the west by the South Atlantic. South Africa covers 3,036,742 square kilometers and has has an estimated population of 8.223 billion.

    [floatleft][box][center]Contents[/center]
    [url=https://www.nationstates.net/nation=lisbane/detail=factbook/id=1008276#Ety]1 Etymology[/url]
    [url=https://www.nationstates.net/nation=lisbane/detail=factbook/id=1008276#Hist]2 History[/url]
    [url=https://www.nationstates.net/nation=lisbane/detail=factbook/id=1008276#Geo]3 Geography[/url]
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    [b][u][size=150][anchor=Ety]Etymology[/anchor][/b][/u][/size]

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, reflecting its origin from the unification of four formerly separate British colonies. Since 1961 the long form name in English has been the "United Nation of South Africa". In Dutch the country was named [i]Republiek van Zuid-Afrika[/i], replaced in 1983 by the Afrikaans [i]Republiek van Suid-Afrika[/i].

The standard way to refer to a citizen of South Africa is as a "South African."

    [b][u][size=150][anchor=Hist]History[/anchor][/b][/u][/size]

    [size=120][b]Portuguese contacts[/b][/size]

At the time of European contact, the dominant ethnic group were Bantu-speaking peoples who had migrated from other parts of Africa about one thousand years before. The two major historic groups were the Xhosa and Zulu peoples.

In 1487, the Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias led the first European voyage to land in southern Africa. On 4 December, he landed at Walfisch Bay (now known as Walvis Bay in present-day Namibia). This was south of the furthest point reached in 1485 by his predecessor, the Portuguese navigator Diogo Cão (Cape Cross, north of the bay). Dias continued down the western coast of southern Africa. After 8 January 1488, prevented by storms from proceeding along the coast, he sailed out of sight of land and passed the southernmost point of Africa without seeing it. He reached as far up the eastern coast of Africa as, what he called, Rio do Infante, probably the present-day Groot River, in May 1488, but on his return he saw the Cape, which he first named Cabo das Tormentas (Cape of Storms). His King, John II, renamed the point Cabo da Boa Esperança, or Cape of Good Hope, as it led to the riches of the East Indies. Dias' feat of navigation was later immortalised in Luís de Camões' Portuguese epic poem, The Lusiads (1572).

[size=120][b]Dutch colonisation[/b][/size]

By the early 17th century, Portugal's maritime power was starting to decline, and English and Dutch merchants competed to oust Lisbon from its lucrative monopoly on the spice trade. Representatives of the British East India Company did call sporadically at the Cape in search of provisions as early as 1601, but later came to favour Ascension Island and St. Helena as alternative ports of refuge. Dutch interest was aroused after 1647, when two employees of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) were shipwrecked there for several months. The sailors were able to survive by obtaining fresh water and meat from the natives. They also sowed vegetables in the fertile soil. Upon their return to Holland they reported favourably on the Cape's potential as a "warehouse and garden" for provisions to stock passing ships for long voyages.

In 1652, a century and a half after the discovery of the Cape sea route, Jan van Riebeeck established a victualing station at the Cape of Good Hope, at what would become Cape Town, on behalf of the Dutch East India Company. In time, the Cape become home to a large population of "vrijlieden", also known as "vrijburgers" (free citizens), former Company employees who stayed in Dutch territories overseas after serving their contracts. Dutch traders also imported thousands of slaves to the fledgling colony from Indonesia, Madagascar, and parts of eastern Africa. Some of the earliest mixed race communities in the country were later formed through unions between vrijburgers, their slaves, and various indigenous peoples. This led to the development of a new ethnic group, the Cape Coloureds, most of whom adopted the Dutch language and Christian faith.

The eastward expansion of Dutch colonists ushered in a series of wars with the southwesterly migrating Xhosa tribe, as both sides competed for the pastureland necessary to graze their cattle near the Great Fish River. Vrijburgers who became independent farmers on the frontier were known as Boers, with some adopting semi-nomadic lifestyles being denoted as trekboers. The Boers formed loose militias, which they termed commandos, and forged alliances with Khoisan groups to repel Xhosa raids. Both sides launched bloody but inconclusive offensives, and sporadic violence, often accompanied by livestock theft, remained common for several decades.

[size=120][b]British colonisation[/b][/size]

Great Britain occupied Cape Town between 1795 and 1803 to prevent it from falling under the control of the French First Republic, which had invaded the Low Countries. Despite briefly returning to Dutch rule under the Batavian Republic in 1803, the Cape was occupied again by the British in 1806. Following the end of the Napoleonic Wars, it was formally ceded to Great Britain and became an integral part of the British Empire. British immigration to South Africa began around 1818, subsequently culminating in the arrival of the 1820 Settlers. The new colonists were induced to settle for a variety of reasons, namely to increase the size of the European workforce and to bolster frontier regions against Xhosa incursions.

In the first two decades of the 19th century, the Zulu people grew in power and expanded their territory under their leader, Shaka. Shaka's warfare led indirectly to the Mfecane ("crushing", or warfare among the indigenous ethnic communities), killing 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 people, that devastated and depopulated the inland plateau in the early 1820s. An offshoot of the Zulu, the Matabele people created a larger empire that included large parts of the highveld under their king Mzilikazi.

During the early 1800s, many Dutch settlers departed from the Cape Colony, where they had been subjected to British control. They migrated to the future Natal, Orange Free State, and Transvaal regions. The Boers founded the Boer Republics: the South African Republic (now Gauteng, Limpopo, Mpumalanga and North West provinces) and the Orange Free State (Free State).

The discovery of diamonds in 1867 and gold in 1884 in the interior started the Mineral Revolution and increased economic growth and immigration. This intensified British efforts to gain control over the indigenous peoples. The struggle to control these important economic resources was a factor in relations between Europeans and the indigenous population and also between the Boers and the British.

The Anglo-Zulu War was fought in 1879 between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom. Following Lord Carnarvon's successful introduction of federation in Canada, it was thought that similar political effort, coupled with military campaigns, might succeed with the African kingdoms, tribal areas and Boer republics in South Africa. In 1874, Sir Henry Bartle Frere was sent to South Africa as High Commissioner for the British Empire to bring such plans into being. Among the obstacles were the presence of the independent states of the South African Republic and the Kingdom of Zululand and its army. The Zulu nation spectacularly defeated the British at the Battle of Isandlwana. Eventually though the war was lost resulting in the end of the Zulu nation's independence.

The Boer Republics successfully resisted British encroachments during the First Boer War (1880–1881) using guerrilla warfare tactics, which were well suited to local conditions. The British returned with greater numbers, more experience, and new strategy in the Second Boer War (1899–1902) but suffered heavy casualties through attrition; nonetheless, they were ultimately successful.

[size=120][b]Independence[/b][/size]

Within the country, anti-British policies among white South Africans focused on independence. During the Dutch and British colonial years, racial segregation was mostly informal, though some legislation was enacted to control the settlement and movement of native people, including the Native Location Act of 1879 and the system of pass laws.

Eight years after the end of the Second Boer War and after four years of negotiation, an act of the British Parliament (South Africa Act 1909) granted nominal independence, while creating the Union of South Africa on 31 May 1910. The Union was a dominion that included the former territories of the Cape and Natal colonies, as well as the republics of Orange Free State and Transvaal.

The Natives' Land Act of 1913 severely restricted the ownership of land by blacks; at that stage natives controlled only 7% of the country. The amount of land reserved for indigenous peoples was later marginally increased.

In 1931 the union was fully sovereign from the United Kingdom with the passage of the Statute of Westminster, which abolished the last powers of the British Government on the country. In 1934, the South African Party and National Party merged to form the United Party, seeking reconciliation between Afrikaners and English-speaking "Whites". In 1939 the party split over the entry of the Union into World War II as an ally of the United Kingdom, a move which the National Party followers strongly opposed.

    [b][u][size=150][anchor=Geo]Geography[/anchor][/b][/u][/size]

    South Africa is located at the southernmost region of Africa, with a long coastline that stretches more than 2,500 km (1,553 mi) and along two oceans (the South Atlantic and the Indian). At 1,219,912 km2 (471,011 sq mi), according to the UN Demographic Yearbook, South Africa is the 25th-largest country in the world. It is about the same size as Colombia, twice the size of France, three times as big as Japan, four times the size of Italy and five times the size of the United Kingdom.

Mafadi in the Drakensberg at 3,450 m (11,320 ft) is the highest peak in South Africa. Excluding the Prince Edward Islands, the country lies between latitudes 22° and 35°S, and longitudes 16° and 33°E.

The interior of South Africa consists of a vast, in most places almost flat, plateau with an altitude of between 1,000 m (3,300 ft) and 2,100 m (6,900 ft), highest in the east and sloping gently downwards towards the west and north, and slightly less noticeably so to the south and south-west. This plateau is surrounded by the Great Escarpment[76] whose eastern, and highest, stretch is known as the Drakensberg.

The south and south-western parts of the plateau (at approximately 1100–1800 m above sea level), and the adjoining plain below (at approximately 700–800 m above sea level) is known as the Great Karoo, which consists of sparsely populated scrubland. To the north the Great Karoo fades into the even drier and more arid Bushmanland, which eventually becomes the Kalahari desert in the very north-west of the country. The mid-eastern, and highest part of the plateau is known as the Highveld. This relatively well-watered area is home to a great proportion of the country’s commercial farmlands, and contains its largest conurbation (Gauteng Province). To the north of Highveld, from about the 25° 30' S line of latitude, the plateau slopes downwards into the Bushveld, which ultimately gives way to the Limpopo lowlands or Lowveld.

The coastal belt, below the Great Escarpment, moving clockwise from the northeast, consists of the Limpopo Lowveld, which merges into the Mpumalanga Lowveld, below the Mpumalanga Drakensberg (the eastern portion of the Great Escarpment). This is hotter, drier and less intensely cultivated than the Highveld above the escarpment. The Kruger National Park, located in the provinces of Limpopo and Mpumalanga in northeastern South Africa, occupies a large portion of the Lowveld covering 19,633 square kilometres (7,580 sq mi.) South of the Lowveld the annual rainfall increases as one enters KwaZulu-Natal Province, which, especially near the coast, is subtropically hot and humid. The KwaZulu-Natal – Lesotho international border is formed by the highest portion of the Great Escarpment, or Drakensberg, which reaches an altitude of over 3,000 m (9,800 ft). The climate at the foot of this part of the Drakensberg is temperate.

The coastal belt below the south and south-western stretches of the Great Escarpment contains several ranges of Cape Fold Mountains which run parallel to the coast, separating the Great Escarpment from the ocean. The land (at approximately 400–500 m above sea level) between two of these ranges of fold mountains in the south (i.e. between the Outeniqua and Langeberg ranges to the south and the Swartberg range to the north) is known as the Little Karoo, which consists of semi-desert scrubland similar to that of the Great Karoo, except that its northern strip along the foothills of the Swartberg Mountains, has a somewhat higher rainfall and is therefore more cultivated than the Great Karoo. The Little Karoo is historically, and still, famous for its ostrich farming around the town of Oudtshoorn. The lowland area (700–800 m above sea level) to the north of the Swartberg mountain range up to the Great Escarpment is the lowland part of the Great Karoo (see map at top right), which is climatically and botanically almost indistinguishable from the Karoo above the Great Escarpment. The narrow coastal strip between the most seaward Cape Fold Mountain range (i.e., the Langeberg–Outeniqua mountains) and the ocean has a moderately high year-round rainfall, especially in the George-Knysna-Plettenberg Bay region, which is known as the Garden Route. It is famous for the most extensive areas of indigenous forests in South Africa (a generally forest-poor country).

In the south-west corner of the country the Cape Peninsula forms the southernmost tip of the coastal strip which borders the Atlantic Ocean, and ultimately terminates at the country’s border with Namibia at the Orange River. The Cape Peninsula has a Mediterranean climate, making it and its immediate surrounds the only portion of Africa south of the Sahara which receives most of its rainfall in winter. The greater Cape Town metropolitan area is situated on the Cape Peninsula and is home to 3.7 million people according to the 2011 population census. It is the country's legislative capital.

The coastal belt to the north of the Cape Peninsula is bounded on the west by the Atlantic Ocean and the first row of north-south running Cape Fold Mountains to the east. The Cape Fold Mountains peter out at about the 32° S line of latitude, after which the coastal plain is bounded by the Great Escarpment itself. The most southerly portion of this coastal belt is known as the Swartland and Malmesbury Plain, which is an important wheat growing region, relying on winter rains. The region further north is known as Namaqualand, which becomes more and more arid as one approaches the Orange River. The little rain that falls, tends to fall in winter,[84] which results in one of the world’s most spectacular displays of flowers carpeting huge stretches of veld in spring (August–September).

South Africa also has one possession, the small sub-Antarctic archipelago of the Prince Edward Islands, consisting of Marion Island (290 km2 or 110 sq mi) and Prince Edward Island (45 km2 or 17 sq mi) (not to be confused with the Canadian province of the same name).

Credit to [nation]Paramountica[/nation] for all Factbook BBCode.