1.
South Africa
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South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa, is the southernmost country in Africa. South Africa is the 25th-largest country in the world by land area and it is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World or the Eastern Hemisphere. About 80 percent of South Africans are of Sub-Saharan African ancestry, divided among a variety of ethnic groups speaking different Bantu languages, the remaining population consists of Africas largest communities of European, Asian, and multiracial ancestry. South Africa is a multiethnic society encompassing a variety of cultures, languages. Its pluralistic makeup is reflected in the recognition of 11 official languages. The country is one of the few in Africa never to have had a coup détat, however, the vast majority of black South Africans were not enfranchised until 1994. During the 20th century, the black majority sought to recover its rights from the dominant white minority, with this struggle playing a role in the countrys recent history. The National Party imposed apartheid in 1948, institutionalising previous racial segregation, since 1994, all ethnic and linguistic groups have held political representation in the countrys democracy, which comprises a parliamentary republic and nine provinces. South Africa is often referred to as the Rainbow Nation to describe the multicultural diversity. The World Bank classifies South Africa as an economy. Its economy is the second-largest in Africa, and the 34th-largest in the world, in terms of purchasing power parity, South Africa has the seventh-highest per capita income in Africa. However, poverty and inequality remain widespread, with about a quarter of the population unemployed, nevertheless, South Africa has been identified as a middle power in international affairs, and maintains significant regional influence. The name South Africa is derived from the geographic location at the southern tip of Africa. Upon formation the country was named the Union of South Africa in English, since 1961 the long form name in English has been the Republic of South Africa. In Dutch the country was named Republiek van Zuid-Afrika, replaced in 1983 by the Afrikaans Republiek van Suid-Afrika, since 1994 the Republic has had an official name in each of its 11 official languages. Mzansi, derived from the Xhosa noun umzantsi meaning south, is a name for South Africa. South Africa contains some of the oldest archaeological and human fossil sites in the world, extensive fossil remains have been recovered from a series of caves in Gauteng Province. The area is a UNESCO World Heritage site and has termed the Cradle of Humankind
2.
Soutpansberg
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The Soutpansberg, meaning Salt Pan Mountain in Afrikaans, is a range of mountains in far northern South Africa. It is located in Vhembe District, Limpopo and it is named for the salt pan located at its western end. The mountain range reaches the opposite extremity in the Matikwa Nature Reserve, the range as a whole had no Venda name, as it was instead known by its sub-ranges which include Dzanani, Songozwi and others. Of late it is known as Tha vhani ya muno. The Soutpansberg forms part of the Vhembe Biosphere Reserve, which was designated as a reserve by UNESCO in 2009. The latter reserve also includes the Blouberg Range, Kruger National Park, Makgabeng Plateau, Makuleke Wetlands, lajuma is the highest peak at 1,747 metres. The Brak River, a tributary of the Sand River, flows diagonally at the end of the Soutpansberg. The first white person to reach, and name, the mountain was Coenraad de Buys and he settled near the mountain in 1820 and was the patriarch of a half-caste clan, the Buysvolk or Buys People, who are still to be found at Buysdorp. De Buys was followed by voortrekker Louis Tregardt who sojourned at the pan from May to August 1836. In November 1836 Tregardt moved camp to the vicinity of the later Schoemansdal and Louis Trichardt town, from June to August 1837 Tregardts party camped at the Doorn River, on the current Doorn River farm, whereafter they departed for good to find a trading route to the sea. Eleven years later, in 1848, a settlement named Zoutpansbergdorp was established at the site of an earlier Tregardt camp and it was founded by Jan Valentyn Botha, who led a faction of Andries Potgieters trek. Potgieter died at Zoutpansbergdorp in 1852, and his son shortly afterwards, in 1855 the towns de facto leader was Stephanus Schoeman who named the growing, though disorderly reed-hut settlement Schoemansdal, after himself. Augmented by renegades, the town was a successful trading centre by 1855. Venda hunters supplied the Voortrekkers with ivory, and were in return supplied with fire arms, relations between the Voortrekkers and Venda soured due to taxation, cattle rustling and lax control over the supply of fire arms. Total discord broke out in 1866, when the voortrekkers intervened in a Venda succession dispute, despite the arrival of a relief commando, the Vendas mountain strongholds could not be taken. The voortrekkers abandoned the town on 15 July 1867 and established Pietersburg, an open-air museum was established to recreate the modest settlement. In October 1898 the Boere returned to control over the territory. General Piet Jouberts commando occupied a position over the Doorn River in preparation
3.
Rock climbing
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Rock climbing is an activity in which participants climb up, down or across natural rock formations or artificial rock walls. The goal is to reach the summit of a formation or the endpoint of a usually pre-defined route without falling. Due to the length and extended endurance required and because accidents are likely to happen on descent than ascent. It is very rare for a climber to downclimb, especially on the larger multiple pitches, professional Rock climbing competitions have the objectives of either completing the route in the quickest possible time or attaining the farthest point on an increasingly difficult route. Scrambling, another activity involving the scaling of hills and similar formations, is similar to rock climbing, however, rock climbing is generally differentiated by its sustained use of hands to support the climbers weight as well as to provide balance. Rock climbing is a physically and mentally demanding sport, one that often tests a climbers strength, endurance, agility and it can be a dangerous activity and knowledge of proper climbing techniques and usage of specialized climbing equipment is crucial for the safe completion of routes. Because of the range and variety of rock formations around the world. Paintings dating from 200 BC show Chinese men rock climbing China woop woop, in early America, the cliff-dwelling Anasazi in the 12th century were thought to be excellent climbers. Early European climbers used rock climbing techniques as a required to reach the summit in their mountaineering exploits. In the 1880s, European rock climbing become an independent pursuit outside of mountain climbing, Rock climbing evolved gradually from an alpine necessity to a distinct athletic activity. However, climbing techniques, equipment and ethical considerations have evolved steadily, today, free climbing, climbing using holds made entirely of natural rock while using gear solely for protection and not for upward movement, is the most popular form of the sport. Free climbing has since divided into several sub-styles of climbing dependent on belay configuration. Over time, grading systems have also created in order to compare more accurately the relative difficulties of the rock climbs. In How to Rock Climb, John Long notes that for moderately skilled climbers simply getting to the top of a route is not enough, in rock climbing, style refers to the method of ascending the cliff. There are three styles of climbing, on-sight, flash, and redpoint. To on-sight a route is to ascend the wall without aid or any foreknowledge and it is considered the way to climb with the most style. Flashing is similar to on-sighting, except that the climber has previous information about the route including talking about the beta with other climbers, redpointing means to make a free ascent of the route after having first tried it. Free climbing is typically divided into styles that differ from one another depending on the choice of equipment used
4.
Human settlement
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In geography, statistics and archaeology, a settlement, locality or populated place is a community in which people live. A settlement can range in size from a number of dwellings grouped together to the largest of cities with surrounding urbanized areas. Settlements may include hamlets, villages, towns and cities, a settlement may have known historical properties such as the date or era in which it was first settled, or first settled by a particular people. In the field of geospatial predictive modeling, settlements are a city, town, village ghost or other agglomeration of buildings where people live and work. The oldest remains that have found of constructed dwellings are remains of huts that were made of mud. The Natufians built houses, also in the Levant, around 10,000 BC, remains of settlements such as villages become much more common after the invention of agriculture. Landscape history studies the form of settlements – for example whether they are dispersed or nucleated, urban morphology can thus be considered a special type of cultural-historical landscape studies. Settlements can be ordered by size, centrality or other factors to define a settlement hierarchy, geoscience Australia defines a populated place as a named settlement with a population of 200 or more persons. The Committee for Geographical Names in Australasia used the term localities for rural areas, the Bulgarian Government publishes a National Register of Populated Places. The Canadian government uses the term populated place in the Atlas of Canada, Statistics Canada uses the term localities for historical named locations. The Croatian Bureau of Statistics records population in units called settlements, the Census Commission of India has a special definition of census towns. The Central Statistics Office of the Republic of Ireland has a definition of census towns. There are various types of inhabited localities in Russia, Statistics Sweden uses the term localities for various densely populated places. The common English-language translation is urban areas, the UK Department for Communities and Local Government uses the term urban settlement to denote an urban area when analysing census information. The Registrar General for Scotland defines settlements as groups of one or more contiguous localities, the Scottish settlements are used as one of several factors defining urban areas. A populated place is not incorporated and by definition has no legal boundaries. However, a place may have a corresponding civil record. Census − a statistical area delineated locally specifically for the tabulation of Census Bureau data, civil − a political division formed for administrative purposes
5.
White South African
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White South Africans are people from South Africa who are of European descent and who do not regard themselves, or are not regarded as, being part of another racial group. In 2011, 61% were native Afrikaans speakers, 36% were native English speakers, White South Africans are by far the largest European-descended population group in Africa. The history of European settlement in South Africa started in 1652 with the settlement of the Cape of Good Hope by the Dutch East India Company under Jan van Riebeeck. The colony remained under Dutch rule for two centuries, after which it was annexed by Great Britain around 1806. At that time, South Africa was home to about 26,000 people of European descent, however, beginning in 1818 thousands of British immigrants arrived in the fledgling Cape Colony, looking to join the local workforce or settle directly on the frontier. About a fifth of the Capes original Dutch-speaking white population migrated eastwards during the Great Trek in the 1830s, nevertheless, the population of European origin continued increasing at the Cape as a result of immigration, and by 1865 had reached 181,500 people. Between 1880 and 1910, there was an influx of Eastern Europeans of various nationalities, the first nationwide census in South Africa was held in 1911 and indicated a white population of 1,276,242. By 1936 there were an estimated 2,003,857 white South Africans, South Africas white population increased to over 3,408,000 by 1965, reached 4,050,000 in 1973, and peaked at 5,044,000 in 1990. The number of white South Africans resident in their home country began gradually declining between 1990 and the mid-2000s as a result of increased emigration, whites continue to play a role in the South African economy and across the political spectrum. Whites number approximately 4.5 to 5 million, or nearly 9% of South Africas population and this represents a decline, both numerically and proportionately, since the countrys first multiracial elections in 1994. Just under a million white South Africans are also living as expatriate workers abroad, under the 1950 Population Registration Act, each inhabitant of South Africa was classified into one of several different race groups, of which White was one. Many criteria, both physical and social were used when the decided to classify someone as white or coloured. This was ventral extended to all those considered the children of two White persons, regardless of appearance, the Act was repealed on 17 June 1991. The 1994 Employment Equity legislation favours employment of black South Africans over the white population, however, private enterprise adheres to this legislation voluntarily. This combined with a wave of violent crime has led to vast numbers of Afrikaners, there are 40,000 white farmers in South Africa. Since 1994 close to three thousand farmers have murdered in thousands of farm attacks, with many being brutally tortured and/or raped. Some victims have been burned with smoothing irons or had boiling water poured down their throats, since 1994 there has been significant emigration of white people from South Africa. There are thus currently large Afrikaner and English-speaking South African communities in the UK, between 1995 and 2005, more than one million South Africans have emigrated, citing violent and racially motivated black on white crime as the main reason
6.
Blouberg (range)
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The Blouberg, meaning Blue Mountain in Afrikaans, is a range of mountains in Limpopo Province, at the far north of South Africa. It is located in Blouberg Local Municipality, Capricorn District, the mountain is entrenched in the history of the local Tswana people, and they have different names for its various parts. The Blouberg is part of the Vhembe Biosphere Reserve, named a reserve by UNESCO since 2009. This reserve also includes the neighboring Makgabeng Plateau, the Soutpansberg, the part of the Kruger National Park, the Makuleke Wetlands. This rocky mountain range rises over a plateau averaging 900 m to the west of the end of the Soutpansberg range. The Blouberg is topped by massive rocky outcrops resembling castles or fortifications with sheer walls and its highest point reaches 2,040 m and is also the highest point of the entire Soutpansberg/Blouberg system. The Brak River, a tributary of the Sand River, flows diagonally along the edge of the Blouberg. Although both ranges are clearly delimited from the point of view, geologically the Blouberg is homonymous with the Soutpansberg. About 117 settlements in its foothills are home to some 161,000 inhabitants, belonging to the Bahananwa and Batlokwa communities, senwabarwana, the economic centre of these villages, is visited by many to do their shopping. During the 19th century they were incorporated in the South African Republic, basic infrastructure and developmental needs were neglected, and in the 21st century it remains one of Limpopos most underdeveloped regions. Many villages experience high unemployment, severe poverty or low levels of income despite the natural resources. Their isolation is mitigated by their sense of community and connectivity to each other, the vegetation of the Blouberg ranges from sub-tropical veld or savanna at the base, to a kind of Afro-montane vegetation related to the Cape Fynbos near the summits. The rocky cliffs are a haven for birds of such as the Cape vultures. The Waterberg flat lizard and a subspecies of the common lizard are found in this range. The Blouberg is one of the most spectacular rock climbing areas in South Africa, as a rock climbing destination it is famous for its sheer 350 m Moonshadow wall
7.
Coloureds
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Coloureds are a multiracial ethnic group originating in colonial South Africa, who possess ancestry from European, African and Asian ethnic groups. Different families and individuals have a variety of different physical features, there were extensive relationships and unions among these diverse peoples in the Western Cape — in which a distinctive Cape Coloured and affiliated Cape Malay culture developed. In other parts of Southern Africa, people classified as Coloured were usually the descendants of individuals from two distinct ethnicities, genetic studies suggest the group has the highest levels of mixed ancestry in the world. Mitochondrial DNA studies have demonstrated that the lines of the Coloured population are descended mostly from Khoisan women. The Coloured community is descended from numerous interracial sexual unions between Western European men and Khoisan women in the Cape Colony from the 17th century onwards. In KwaZulu-Natal, Coloureds possess a diverse heritage including British, Irish, German, Mauritian, Saint Helenians, Indians, Xhosa, zimbabwean Coloureds are descended from Shona or Ndebele mixing with British and Afrikaner settlers. Griqua, on the hand, are descendants of Khoisan. Despite these major differences, their ancestry from more than one naturalised racial group means that they are coloured in the South African context, such people did not necessarily self-identify this way, some preferred to call themselves black or Khoisan or just South African. The Griqua were subjected to an ambiguity of other people within Southern African social order. With territories beyond the VOC’s administration, Kok provided refuge to deserting soldiers, runaway slaves, the imperial and apartheid governments categorized them as Coloureds. In addition, other groups also traditionally viewed them as a separate group. Coloured people are made up of Indonesian, mixed-race, and people from Khoisan ancestry, the Apartheid government thus treated them as one people, despite their differences. Cape Muslims are also classified as coloured and they generally have Indonesian and black ancestry, as many Indonesian slaves had children with African partners. Many Griqua began to self-identify as Coloureds during the apartheid era, for example, Coloureds did not have to carry a dompas, while the Griqua, who were seen as an indigenous African group, did. Coloured people constitute a plurality of the population in the Western Cape, most speak Afrikaans, while about twenty percent of Coloureds speak English as their mother tongue, mostly in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. Virtually all Cape Town Coloureds are bilingual, some can comfortably codeswitch between Kaapse taal and suiwer Afrikaans, and South African English. At least one study indicates that Cape Coloureds have ancestries from the following ethnic groups. This genetic admixture appears to be gender-biased, a majority of maternal genetic material is Khoisan
8.
Limpopo
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Limpopo is the northernmost province of South Africa. It is named after the Limpopo River, which forms the western and northern borders. The name Limpopo has its origin in the Northern Sotho language word diphororo tša meetse. The capital is Polokwane, formerly called Pietersburg, the province was formed from the northern region of Transvaal Province in 1994, and was initially named Northern Transvaal. An alternate name considered for the province was Mapungubwe, the area where its most ancient gold-using civilization had been discovered a few years earlier. Limpopo has the highest level of poverty of any South African province, in 2011,74. 4% of local dwellings were located in a tribal or traditional area, compared to a national average of 27. 1%. The Northern Sotho language is spoken by more than half of Limpopos population, Limpopo is the link between South Africa and countries further afield in sub-Saharan Africa. On its southern edge, from east to west, it borders with the South African provinces of Mpumalanga, Gauteng. Its border with Gauteng includes that provinces Johannesburg-Pretoria axis, the most industrialized metropole on the continent, the province is at the centre of regional, national, and international developing markets. Limpopo contains much of the Waterberg Biosphere, a massif of approximately 15,000 km2 which is the first region in the part of South Africa to be named a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. The massif was shaped by hundreds of millions of years of riverine erosion yielding diverse bluff, the Waterberg ecosystem can be characterized as a dry deciduous forest or Bushveld. Within the Waterberg, archaeological finds date to the Stone Age, nearby are early evolutionary finds related to the origin of humans. The current premier of Limpopo Province is Stanley Mathabatha, representing the African National Congress and it is also one of the poorest regions of South Africa with a big gap between poor and rich residents, especially in rural areas. However, Limpopos economy and standard of living have shown great improvement, a recent border shift with Limpopos wealthier neighbour, Mpumalanga, was effected to try and bring some wealth into the province. The bushveld is beef cattle country, where extensive ranching operations are often supplemented by controlled hunting, about 80% of South Africas game hunting industry is found in Limpopo. Sunflowers, cotton, maize and peanuts are cultivated in the Bela-Bela, Modimolle is also known for its table grapes. Tropical fruit, such as bananas, litchis, pineapples, mangoes and pawpaws, as well as a variety of nuts, are grown in the Tzaneen, Tzaneen is also at the centre of extensive citrus, tea and coffee plantations, and a major forestry industry. Commodities such as granite, corundum, and feldspar are also found
9.
Democratic Alliance (South Africa)
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The Democratic Alliance is a South African political party and the official opposition to the governing African National Congress. The present leader is Mmusi Maimane, who succeeded former Mayor of Cape Town, the party is broadly centrist, though it has been attributed both centre-left and centre-right policies. It is a member of the Liberal International and the Africa Liberal Network, the DA traces its roots to the founding of the anti-apartheid Progressive Party in 1959, with many mergers and name changes between that time and the present. The party adopted its current name on 24 June 2000, most recently, it has integrated the smaller Independent Democrats and the tiny South African Democratic Convention. The DA has been governing the Western Cape, one of South Africas nine provinces, since the 2009 general election, having won a bigger majority at the most recent election in 2014. It is the party to have increased its share of the vote in every national election held since 1994. The party draws support from all population groups in South Africa. Since 2016, the DA also governs several of South Africas major metropolitan municipalities, although the Democratic Alliance in its present form is fairly new, its roots can be traced far back in South African political history, through a complex sequence of splits and mergers. The modern day DA is in part a product of the white parliamentary opposition to the ruling National Party. The Progressives sought to change the system from within, but in doing so choose to comply with Apartheid legislation outlawing multi-racial membership. During this time, the party was led by liberal-minded opponents of apartheid, such as Jan Steytler, Helen Suzman, Zach de Beer, Colin Eglin, Frederik van Zyl Slabbert and Harry Schwarz. In 1989, it would merge with two smaller reformist organisations to become the Democratic Party, a name that was retained into the 1990s when freedom was achieved. It was marginalized by the National Partys shift towards the center after 1990, the party also became kingmakers in the Western Cape province, where it formed a coalition government with the NNP. With a fractured national opposition standing against an increasingly dominant governing party, to this end, the DP reached a merger agreement with the NNP and the much smaller Federal Alliance in 2000. Together they formed the Democratic Alliance, the merger was ultimately aborted, with both the NNP and FA leaving the DA. Many former NNP members remained, however, and the new name was kept, the DP was disbanded after the 2003 floor crossing period, establishing the DA at all levels of government. The party consolidated its status as the opposition in the 2004 general election. Having gone into opposition in the Western Cape in 2001 when the NNP formed a new coalition with the ANC, in the 2006 municipal elections, the DA narrowly gained control of its largest city, Cape Town, in a multi-party coalition
10.
Economic Freedom Fighters
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Malema is President of the EFF, heading the Central Command Team which serves as the central structure of the party. It is currently the third-largest party in both houses of the South African parliament, receiving 1,169,259 votes and a 6. 35% share of the vote in the 2014 general election. By December 2014, the EFF claimed to have half a million members. At a 28 July 2013 press briefing in Soweto, Malema announced that the new party had over 1000 members, the EFF is now registered with the IEC, after an objection to its registration by the Freedom Front Plus was dismissed in September 2013. In 2015, the EFF suspended MP Lucky Twala and expelled three MPs, Mpho Ramakatsa, Andile Mngxitama and Khanyisile Litchfield-Tshabalala, Mngxitama formed his own party, named Black First Land First, while Litchfield-Tshabalala joined the United Democratic Movement. The EFF takes significant inspiration from Sankara in terms of style and ideology. In a May 2014 column, the prominent EFF member Jackie Shandu declared his party a proudly Sankarist formation, the EFF has been vocal in its criticism of black business owners and black owners of mining companies in South Africa. In an address at the Oxford Union in November 2015, Malema spoke out against billionaire mining company owner Patrice Motsepe. Further protests in 2015, the EFF delivered demands that included the socialization of the mining sector, Malema addressed a crowd in Marikana, Rustenburg in the platinum mining area, blaming mining companies and calling out platinum mining company Lonmin in particular, for poverty in the region. High profile members of the Central Command Team include Floyd Shivambu, Fana Mokoena, controversial businessman Kenny Kunene joined the Central Command Team in July 2013 before resigning from the Central Command Team on 20 August 2013 and from the organisation on 26 August 2013. On 4 November 2013, it was announced that Dali Mpofu had left the African National Congress after 33 years of membership, a disproportionate number of supporters live in Malemas home province of Limpopo, while only 1% live in KwaZulu-Natal, a more populous province. The party was expected to make an impact in the 2014 general election and this was potentially enough for the party to hold the balance of power in provinces where the governing African National Congress was in danger of losing its absolute majority. In fact, the ANC retained its majority, but the EFF moved into third place, surging past the shrinking Inkatha Freedom Party. On 6 August 2015 the EFF announced that it has secured a Constitutional court case for its Jacob Zuma campaign of #PayBackTheMoney, the case was heard on the 9 February 2016. The Judgement was released by Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng, the judgement stated that The President has violated the constitution of the country together with the parliament speaker Baleka Mbete. There has also been a feminist critique of the partys militarism and it has been argued, by journalist Jane Duncan of the South African Civil Society Information Service, that the partys documents reproduce racial stereotypes. ”Namibian Economic Freedom Fighters Workers and Socialist Party van Onselen, Gareth. Archived from the original on 6 June 2014, EFF, You want land, a loan. Archived from the original on 28 March 2014, julius Malema, EFF2014 Elections Manifesto, Economic Freedom Fighters
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