South Africa
Map:

Flag description:  two equal width horizontal bands of red (top) and blue separated by a central green band which splits into a horizontal Y, the arms of which end at the corners of the hoist side; the Y embraces a black isosceles triangle from which the arms are separated by narrow yellow bands; the red and blue bands are separated from the green band and its arms by narrow white stripes 
note: prior to 26 April 1994, the flag was actually four flags in one - three miniature flags reproduced in the center of the white band of the former flag of the Netherlands, which has three equal horizontal bands of orange (top), white, and blue; the miniature flags are a vertically hanging flag of the old Orange Free State with a horizontal flag of the UK adjoining on the hoist side and a horizontal flag of the old Transvaal Republic adjoining on the other side 

Location: Southern Africa, at the southern tip of the continent of Africa 

Geographic coordinates: 29 00 S, 24 00 E 

Climate: mostly semiarid; subtropical along east coast; sunny days, cool nights

Independence: 31 May 1910 (from UK) 

Nationality: South African(s) 

Capital City: Pretoria

Population: 43,421,021

Head of State: President Thabo MBEKI 

Area: 1,219,912 sq km 

Type of Government: republic

Currency: 1 rand (R) = 100 cents 

Major peoples: black 75.2%, white 13.6%, Colored 8.6%, Indian 2.6% 

Religion: Christian 68% (includes most whites and Coloreds, about 60% of blacks and about 40% of Indians), Muslim 2%, Hindu 1.5% (60% of Indians), indigenous beliefs and animist 28.5% 

Official Language: 11 official languages, including Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Pedi, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu 

Principal Languages: 11 official languages, including Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Pedi, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu 

Major Exports: gold, diamonds, other metals and minerals, machinery and equipment 

History:
The first known inhabitants of present-day South Africa were San and Khoikhoi hunters and gatherers;  they were followed southward by Bantu-speaking peoples between AD 1000 and 1500. In 1488, Portuguese mariners led by Bartolomeu DIAS rounded the Cape of Good Hope.  The Dutchman Jan van Riebeeck established the first European settlement at Table Bay (now Cape Town) in 1652 as a station for the Dutch East India Company.  Dutch pioneers spread eastward, and in 1779 war broke out between Xhosas migrating south and the Dutch near the Great Fish River.
Britain controlled the Cape sporadically during the Napoleonic Wars and formally received the territory in 1814 under provisions made by the Congress of Vienna.  Large-scale British settlement began in 1820.  To preserve their Calvinist way of life, the Dutch (Boer) farmers began (1836) to move into the interior on the so-called GREAT TREK.  In 1838 about 70 Voortrekkers were massacred by Zulus, defeating them in the Battle of Blood River.  The Voortrekkers eventually set up independent republics, including the Orange Free State (1854) and the South African Republic (1852;  later the Transvaal).
The discovery of diamonds and gold in the late 1800s drew British immigrant entrepreneurs (Uitlanders, or "foreigners") into the interior, and conflict over ownership ensued.  Paul KRUGER (Oom Paul), leader of the Transvaal, resisted British attempts to claim the area, including those by Cecil RHODES, prime minister of the British-controlled Cape Colony, who encouraged the Uitlanders to take over the Transvaal.  The unsuccessful Jameson Raid, engineered by the British and intended to aid the Uitlanders in an uprising, added to the mounting tension.  Eventually, the SOUTH AFRICAN WAR (1899-1902) erupted between the British and the Boers, with the British the victors. In this war the British introduced CONSENTRATION CAMPS in which 26,000 Boer women and children died.  In 1910 such leaders as Jan SMUTS helped create the Union of South Africa, with dominion status, out of the former British colonies and the two defeated Boer republics.  Louis BOTHA, a moderate Afrikaner advocating close cooperation with the British, became the first prime minister.
Between the two world wars, mining and manufacturing expanded. The Depression of the 1930s, however, forced black Africans and white farmers alike into the cities to compete for unskilled jobs.  As a result, both African and Afrikaner nationalism emerged.  At the same time, a segregationist policy was adopted by James Barry HERTZOG'S government (1924-39) to preserve South Africa as a white country in which black Africans would be restricted as far as possible to reserves.  The Coloured population, whose voting rights had been protected by the 1910 constitution, was disenfranchised.

In 1948, Daniel F. MALAN'S National party was elected to office and introduced the policy of apartheid--"separate development"--which was designed to ensure white supremacy. During the premiership of Hendrik F. VERWOERD, parliament adopted the Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act, which created the legal machinery by which ten African homelands would eventually receive independence.  The homelands, reserved for 74% of the country's total population, were territorially fragmented and overpopulated and had limited resources, although parts of them were later consolidated to make them more viable.  Transkei received nominal independence in 1976, Bophuthatswana a year later, Venda in 1979, and Ciskei in 1981. No country except South Africa recognized the homelands as independent countries.  About 9 million blacks in the ethnic groups associated with these homelands lost their South African citizenship at independence;  later government proposals to restore citizenship to those who qualified as permanent residents of white South Africa have applied to fewer than 2 million of them.
African opposition to apartheid intensified in the 1950s, spearheaded by the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan African Congress (PAC).  These organizations were banned in 1960 following the Sharpeville massacre near Vereeniging in which 69 Africans, demonstrating against the pass laws, were killed by police.  In 1961 the Union of South Africa withdrew from the Commonwealth of Nations due to opposition within that body to apartheid policies, and the Republic of South Africa was declared.  Opposition to apartheid at home continued and became more violent.  In 1976 some 400 persons were killed when riots broke out in Soweto and other black townships.  The government retaliated by detaining its critics, including Stephen Biko, a young black activist whose death in police custody in 1977 aroused international protest.

Under P. W. BOTHA, who replaced B. J. VORSTER as prime minister in 1978, the South African government began what it believed were major political and social reforms.  In 1979, for example, it legalized black labor unions, and in 1985 it repealed the ban on multiracial political parties, ended limits on the number of black workers that could be employed by industrial concerns, and repealed the law prohibiting persons to marry outside their racial group.  The hated pass laws that had controlled the movement of blacks to the cities were scrapped in 1986, and blacks were granted limited property rights in black urban areas, although new forms of influx control were imposed on inhabitants of the independent homelands.  In 1987 the government proposed some modifications to the Group Areas Act, under which all urban areas are racially segregated.  The new constitution, however, continued to deny the country's black majority the right to vote in national elections and gave only limited power to Coloureds and Asians.  The homelands policy continued.
The reforms met with mixed reaction.  Ultraconservatives within the National party, criticizing the departures from the basic tenets of apartheid, defected to form two new parties--the Herstigte Nasionale party and the Conservative party.  The Conservative party garnered enough votes in the 1987 parliamentary elections to replace the moderate Progressive Federal Labor party as the official opposition, although the national party retained its majority and Botha remained state president.
The reforms, generally viewed as an attempt by whites to share power without losing control, largely failed to satisfy black aspirations.  Elections for new black town councils with greater local authority, first held in 1983, were boycotted by about 80% of black voters.  In 1984 the United Democratic Front (UDF)--a multiracial umbrella group for some 600 community, labor, student, church, and women's groups--urged Asians and Coloureds to boycott the first elections under the new constitution;  less than 20% of eligible voters cast ballots. Most blacks also boycotted the 1988 municipal elections.  In the white municipalities, the Conservatives made substantial gains in the 1988 elections and threatened to reverse some of the reforms.  Another group, the black-consciousness Azanian People's Organization (AZAPO), rejected any idea of power-sharing with whites.
Nelson MANDELA, the leader of the banned ANC, was removed from jail for medical treatment in 1988.  Almost all groups demanded that the government permanently release the most popular leader among blacks and include him in any power-sharing negotiations. Moderate black spokesmen such as Bishop Desmond TUTU had considerable success in their campaign to persuade foreign- owned businesses operating in South Africa to disinvest, although overseas investment in South Africa remained substantial.  Another moderate, Zulu chief Gatsha Buthelezi, and the political leaders of Natal province proposed a merger of the KwaZulu homeland with Natal to create a new, nonracial political entity.  The proposal was rejected by both the government and the ANC, although Natal and KwaZulu did establish a joint executive council in 1987.
Black protest against apartheid, including rent strikes, consumer and school boycotts, demonstrations, and strikes, increased.  So did violence--against the police, against blacks cooperating with the white regime, and against members of rival political and ethnolinguistic groups--particularly in the black townships.  The government responded by cracking down on dissent.  More than 2,000 people died between September 1984 and June 1986, when the government imposed a strict nationwide state of emergency just before the tenth anniversary of the Soweto uprising.  Thousands of government opponents were imprisoned without trial, and severe restrictions were placed on press coverage of the violence.  The state of emergency was renewed (1987, 1988, 1989), and additional restrictions imposed on the UDF and other anti-apartheid groups further narrowed legitimate avenues of black protest.
In the September 1989 parliamentary elections, the National party lost seats to both the right and the left, but an overall majority went to candidates advocating cautious reform. Significant changes took place in 1990.  The 30-year ban on the ANC was lifted on February 2, and ANC leader Nelson MANDELA, the most popular leader among blacks, was released on February 11.   F. W. de Klerk pledged to end apartheid, and the state of emergency was lifted in all provinces except Natal, where more than 3,000 blacks had died since 1986 in a struggle between supporters of the ANC and those backing the rival Inkatha.  In August the ANC abandoned its armed struggle against the government.  In 1991 the basic apartheid laws were repealed, the UDF was disbanded, and the government accepted a UN-supervised plan for the return of political exiles.  Formal negotiations to end white minority rule that began in December 1991 were endorsed by white voters in March 1992.  The talks broke down after a June 1992 massacre of ANC supporters in the black township of Boipatong in which South African security forces were said to be implicated.  In September, after a massacre of ANC demonstrators on the Ciskel border, the government adopted measures to reduce black-on-black violence, which had claimed more than 6,500 lives since early 1990.

Regionally and internationally, South Africa became more isolated and more confrontational by the mid-1980s.  Although it had signed nonaggression pacts with Swaziland (1982) and Mozambique (1984) and a cease-fire with Angola (1984), its defense forces struck repeatedly at suspected ANC bases in Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, and it continued to wage war in Angola and Namibia against nationalist guerrillas of the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO).  In addition, it allegedly continued its support of indigenous antigovernment guerrillas in Angola and Mozambique. International pressure to end apartheid seemed to have little effect.
In 1991, however, the dismantling of apartheid led to the lifting of many of the international sanctions imposed on South Africa, including a ban on its participation in the Olympic Games.  The nation's relations with the rest of Africa improved after Namibia gained independence (1990) and peace accords were signed in Angola (1991) and Mozambique (1992).