South Africa History

The San (Bushmen) are among the oldest indigenous peoples in Southern Africa. They have been around there for 2000 years. In the eighth century Bantu speaking people from East Africa arrived in South Africa. In 1652 the Dutch East India trading company set up a provision base and began to settle. In 1814 the area was assigned to British rule. The rules and regulations that came with British rule caused a majority of Boers (Dutch settlers) to migrate east to found their own republics, this was named the Great Task. The 1860's brought the first Indian laborers to work on the sugar plantations. The Union of South Africa was formed in 1910. In 1948 a system of apartheid was introduced. This was in place until the African National Congress (ANC) won the election in 1994. The ANC are still in power initially with Nelson Mandela as president follwed by Thabo Mbeki who still holds presidency.

Capital: Pretoria
Population:
42,718,530 (CIA estimate)
45.2 million (UN, 2004)
Languages: 11 official languages including, Afrikaans,English, Ndebele, Pedi, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu
Religions: Christian 68%, Muslim 2%, Hindu 1.5%, Indigenous beliefs and animist 28.5%