South Africa

South Africa occupies the southern tip of the continent, its Atlantic coast chilled by the Benguela Current and its Indian Ocean shore warmed by the Agulhas; the two oceans meet at Cape Agulhas, Africa’s southernmost point. The interior is a high plateau rimmed by the Great Escarpment. The semi-desert Karoo spreads across the centre-west, and the Namaqualand coast bursts into wild flowers after the winter rains. The Cape Floral Kingdom, the fynbos country of the south-west, is the smallest of the world’s six plant kingdoms and one of the richest.

Fossils from the Cradle of Humankind, near Johannesburg, are key records of human evolution. San hunter-gatherers and Khoikhoi herders were joined by Bantu-speaking farmers moving south. Dutch traders set up a supply station at the Cape in 1652; Britain took it in 1806. Diamonds at Kimberley and gold on the Witwatersrand led to the South African War of 1899–1902. White minority rule hardened into apartheid from 1948; after decades of resistance, Nelson Mandela was freed in 1990 and the first election open to all was held in 1994.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu called it the Rainbow Nation. A weekend braai, rugby, cricket and football cut across old divides, and the music runs from choral singing to kwaito and amapiano. Nadine Gordimer and J. M. Coetzee won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Mining built the modern economy; gold, platinum, manganese and coal still matter, alongside car plants in the Eastern Cape, Cape wine and citrus, and Johannesburg’s banks.