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
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History of South Africa
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The history of South Africa starts more than 100,000 years ago, when the first humans inhabited the region. The discoveries also led to new conflicts culminating in open warfare between the Boer settlers and imperial Britain, fought essentially for control over the nascent South African mining industry. The country became a nation state within the British Empire in 1934 following enactment of the Status of the Union Act. The dominion came to an end on 31 May 1961 in consequence of a 1960 referendum, from 1948 to 1994, South African politics were dominated by Afrikaner nationalism. It was an extension of segregationist legislation enacted in 1960, since then the ANC has dominated the politics of the country in an uneasy alliance with the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions. It was inhabited by Australopithecines since at least 2.5 million years ago, Modern human settlement occurred around 125,000 years ago in the Middle Stone Age, as shown by archaeological discoveries at Klasies River Caves. The first human habitation is associated with a DNA group originating in a area of southern Africa. At the Blombos cave Professor Raymond Dart discovered the skull of a 2.51 million year old Taung Child in 1924, in further research at the Blombos cave in 2002, stones were discovered engraved with grid or cross-hatch patterns, dated to some 70,000 years ago. This has been interpreted as the earliest example ever discovered of abstract art or symbolic art created by Homo sapiens, many more species of early hominid have come to light in recent decades. The oldest is Little Foot, a collection of footbones of an unknown hominid between 2.2 and 3.3 million years old, discovered at Sterkfontein by Ronald J. Clarke. An important recent find was that of 1.9 million year old Australopithecus sediba, in 2015, the discovery near Johannesburg of a previously unknown species of Homo was announced, named Homo naledi. It has been described as one of the most important paleontological discoveries in modern times, the descendants of the Middle Paleolithic populations are thought to be the aboriginal San and Khoikhoi tribes. The San and Khoikhoi are grouped under the term Khoisan, and are distinguished only by their respective occupations. Whereas the San were hunter-gathers, the Khoikhoi were pastoral herders, archaeological discoveries of livestock bones on the Cape Peninsula indicate that the Khoikhoi began to settle there by about 2000 years ago. In the late 15th and early 16th centuries, Portuguese mariners, later, English and Dutch seafarers in the late 16th and 17th centuries exchanged metals for cattle and sheep with the Khoikhoi. The initial origin of the Khoikhoi remains uncertain, the establishment of the staging post by the Dutch East India Company at the Cape in 1652 soon brought the Khoikhoi into conflict with Dutch settlers over land ownership. Cattle rustling and livestock theft ensued, with the Khoikhoi being ultimately expelled from the peninsula by force, the first Khoikhoi-Dutch War broke out in 1659, the second in 1673, and the third 1674–1677. The disease had brought to the Cape by Dutch sailors
3.
Kingdom of Mutapa
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Its founders are descendants of the builders who constructed Great Zimbabwe. The Portuguese term Monomotapa is a transliteration of the African royal title Mwenemutapa meaning prince of the realm. It is derived from a combination of two words Mwene meaning Prince, and Mutapa meaning Realm, over time the monarchs royal title came to be applied to the kingdom as a whole, and was used to denote the kingdoms territory on maps from the period. The origins of the dynasty at Mutapa go back to some time in the first half of the 15th century. According to oral tradition, the first Mwene was a prince named Nyatsimba Mutota from the Kingdom of Zimbabwe sent to find new sources of salt in the north. Thats the first legend Prince Mutota found his salt among the Tavara, a Shona subdivision, the second says that there was hunger at the Kingdom of Zimbabwe. Mutota then escaped the hunger then found land and they were conquered, a capital was established 350 km north of Great Zimbabwe at Zvongombe by the Zambezi. Mutotas successor, Mwenemutapa Matope, extended this new kingdom into an empire encompassing most of the lands between Tavara and the Indian Ocean, the Mwenemutapa became very wealthy by exploiting copper from Chidzurgwe and ivory from the middle Zambezi. This expansion weakened the Torwa kingdom, the southern Shona state from which Mutota, matopes armies overran the kingdom of the Manyika as well as the coastal kingdoms of Kiteve and Madanda. By the time the Portuguese arrived on the coast of Mozambique and he raised a strong army which conquered the Dande area that is Tonga and Tavara. The empire had reached its full extent by the year 1480 a mere 50 years following its creation, the Emperor Mutope had left the empire with a well-organised religion with a powerful priesthood, something uncommon amongst African Kingdoms outside of Egypt, Kush and Abyssinia. The religion of the Mutapa kingdom revolved around ritual consultation of spirits, shrines were maintained within the capital by spirit mediums known as mhondoro. The mhondoro also served as oral historians recording the names and deeds of past kings, the Portuguese dominated much of southeast Africas coast, laying waste to Sofala and Kilwa, by 1515. Their main goal was to dominate the trade with India, however, as the Portuguese settled along the coast, they made their way into the hinterland as sertanejos. These sertanejos lived alongside Swahili traders and even took up service among Shona kings as interpreters, one such sertanejo, António Fernandes, managed to travel through almost all the Shona kingdoms, including Mutapas metropolitan district, between 1512 and 1516. The Portuguese finally entered into relations with the Mwenemutapa in the 1560s. They recorded a wealth of information about the Mutapa kingdom as well as its predecessor, and while the site was not within Mutapas borders, the Mwenemutapa kept noblemen and some of his wives there. In 1569, King Sebastian of Portugal made a grant of arms to the Mwenemutapa and these were blazoned, Gules between two arrows Argent an African hoe barwise bladed Or handled Argent – The shield surmounted by a Crown Oriental
4.
Swellendam
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Swellendam is the 3rd oldest town in the Republic of South Africa, a town with 17,537 inhabitants situated in the Western Cape province. The town has over 50 provincial heritage sites most of buildings of Cape Dutch architecture. Swellendam is situated on the N2, approximately 220 km from both Cape Town and George, early travellers and explorers who visited the Cape in the 16th century traded with the Khoikhoi people who lived on these shores and in the interior. When the Dutch East India Company established a replenishment station at the Cape in 1652, in time, a village was established beyond the Drostdy, where artisans including numerous wainwrights and traders settled. Swellendam was the last outpost of Dutch civilisation on the eastern frontier, by 1795 maladministration and inadequacies of the Dutch East India Company caused the long-suffering burghers of Swellendam to revolt, and on 17 June 1795 they declared themselves a Republic. Hermanus Steyn was appointed as President of the Republic of Swellendam, the burghers of Swellendam started to call themselves national burghers – after the style of the French Revolution. But the Republic was short-lived due to the occupation of the Cape by the Kingdom of Great Britain, the Breede River is the only navigable river in South Africa and ships sailed 35 km up river to Malgas to unload and load merchandise. By the middle of the 19th century, the districts had been colonised by the British settlers. The town served as a refreshment station on the long. Today Swellendam is an agricultural area, and has many attractive. The first known sketch of Swellendam was of the Drostdy, by Johannes Schumacher in 1776, today the Drostdy forms part of a museum complex that consist of several heritage sites, namely the Drostdy, the old Goal and Mayville. In June 2011, the Swellendam Municipality area, which includes Barrydale, Suurbraak, Malgas, Infanta and Stormsvlei, there are long summer days in January and February. During February and March, summer draws to a close, with prevailing South Easter winds, april and May are autumnal months, with milder days and occasional showers. June and July bring the Cape winter, with weather, rain. August and September are the start of spring, three nature reserves are situated near Swellendam, Marloth Nature Reserve, Sanbona Wildlife Reserve and Bontebok National Park. Bontebok National Park is where the rare bontebok was protected when it was close to extinction, the population has increased from 17 individuals in 1931 to a sustainable number today. The area is diverse with an abundance of wild flowers. The 250ha indigenous forest at Grootvadersbosch is the most noteworthy in the southwestern Cape, woods like these are rare to find in the Cape this far west of the Knysna forests
5.
Zulu Kingdom
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The area was subsequently absorbed into the Colony of Natal and later became part of the Union of South Africa. Shaka Zulu was the son of Senzangakona, King of the Zulus. He and his mother, Nandi, were exiled by Senzangakona, Shaka fought as a warrior under Jobe, and then under Jobes successor, Dingiswayo, leader of the Mthethwa Paramountcy. When Senzangakona died, Dingiswayo helped Shaka claim his place as chief of the Zulu Kingdom, after Dingiswayos death at the hands of Zwide, king of the Ndwandwe, around 1818, Shaka assumed leadership of the entire Mthethwa alliance. Shaka initiated many military, social, cultural and political reforms, the alliance under his leadership survived Zwides first assault at the Battle of Gqokli Hill. The death toll has never been determined, but the whole region became nearly depopulated. Normal estimates for the death toll during this period range from 1 million to 2 million people, by 1825, Shaka had conquered a huge empire covering an area of around 11,500 square miles. Shaka was succeeded by Dingane, his brother, who conspired with Mhlangana, another half-brother, and Mbopa. Following this assassination, Dingane murdered Mhlangana, and took over the throne, one of his first royal acts was to execute all of his royal kin. In the years followed, he also executed many past supporters of Shaka in order to secure his position. One exception to these purges was Mpande, another half-brother, who was considered too weak to be a threat at the time, before encountering the British, the Zulus were first confronted with the Boers. In an attempt to form their own state as a protection against the British, while travelling they first collided with the Ndebele kingdom, and then with Dinganes Zulu kingdom. In October 1837, the Voortrekker leader Piet Retief visited Dingane at his kraal to negotiate a land deal for the voortrekkers. In November, about 1,000 Voortrekker wagons began descending the Drakensberg mountains from the Orange Free State into what is now KwaZulu-Natal. Dingane asked that Retief and his party retrieve some cattle stolen from him by a chief as part of the treaty for land for the Boers. This Retief and his men did, returning on 3 February 1838, the next day, a treaty was signed, wherein Dingane ceded all the land south of the Tugela River to the Mzimvubu River to the Voortrekkers. On 6 February, at the end of the celebrations, Retiefs party were invited to a dance, at the peak of the dance, Dingane leapt to his feet and yelled Bambani abathakathi. Retief and his men were overpowered, taken to the nearby hill kwaMatiwane, some believe that they were killed for withholding some of the cattle they recovered, but it is likely that the deal was a plot to overpower the Voortrekkers
6.
South African Republic
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The territory of the ZAR became known after this war as the Transvaal Colony. Constitutionally the name of the country was Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek, many people also called the ZAR Transvaal, in reference to the area over the Vaal River including the British press and the press in Europe. In fact the name Transvaal was later so often used later the British objected to the use of the real name. The British pointed out that the Convention of Pretoria of 3 August 1881 referred to the Transvaal Territory and that the Transvaal and the South African Republic did not have the same boundaries. However, in the London Convention dated 27 February 1884, a subsequent treaty between Britain and the ZAR, Britain acquiesced and reverted to the use of the true name and this proclamation was issued during the Second Boer War and whilst the ZAR was still an independent country. On 20 May 1903 an Inter Colonial Council was established, to manage the colonies of the British Government, the name Transvaal was finally changed in 1994, when the ANC government broke up the Transvaal area and renamed the core to Gauteng. In paleolithic times, between 2.2 and 3.3 million years ago, hominids lived within the area of the ZAR. The earliest hominid bones, between 2.2 and 3.3 million years old, were discovered at Sterkfontein in 1994, in 1938 Paranthropus robustus bones were found at Kromdraai, and during 1947 several more examples of Australopithecus africanus were uncovered in Sterkfontein. The capital was established at Potchefstroom and later moved to Pretoria, the parliament was called the Volksraad and had 24 members. The South African Republic became fully independent on the 27 February 1884 when the London Convention was signed, the country independently also entered into various agreements with other foreign countries after that date. On 3 November 1884 the country signed a Postal convention with the government of the Cape Colony, on the November 1859 the independent Republic of Lijdenburg merged with the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek. On 9 May 1887, burghers from the territories of Stellaland, on 25 July 1895 the burghers that took part in the battle at Zoutpansberg, were granted citizenship of the ZAR. The constitution of the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek has been referred to as interesting for its time. It contained provisions for the division between the leadership and office bearers in government administration. The legal system consisted of higher and lower courts and had adopted a jury system, the laws were enforced by the South African Republic Police which were divided into Mounted Police and Foot Police. Also established was a Municipal Government, Witwatersrand District court and the High Court of Transvaal, initially the State and Church were not separated in the constitution of the ZAR, citizens of the ZAR had to be members of the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1858 these clauses were altered in the constitution to allow for the Volksraad to approve other Dutch Christian churches. The Reformed Church was approved by the Volksraad in 1858, which had the effect of allowing Paul Kruger, the Bible itself was also often used to interpret the intention of legal documents
7.
Griqualand West
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Griqualand West is an area of central South Africa with an area of 40,000 km² that now forms part of the Northern Cape Province. It was inhabited by the Griqua people - a semi-nomadic, Afrikaans-speaking nation of mixed-race origin and it was also inhabited by the pre-existing Tswana and Khoisan peoples. In 1873 it was proclaimed as a British colony, with its capital at Kimberley, when the Union of South Africa was formed in 1910 Griqualand West was part of the Cape Province, but continued to have its own provincial sports teams. The aboriginal population of the area were the Khoi-khoi and Bushmen peoples, early on they were joined by the agriculturalist Tswana people, who migrated into the area from the north. They comprised the majority of the population throughout the regions history, by the early 19th century the whole area came to be dominated by the powerful Griqua people, who gave the region its name. The Griqua are a people who originated in the intermarriages between Dutch colonists in the Cape and the Khoikhoi already living there. The Dutch East India Company did not intend the Cape Colony at the Southern tip of Africa to become a political entity, as it expanded and became more successful, its leaders did not worry about frontiers. The frontier of the colony was indeterminate and ebbed and flowed at the whim of individuals, while the VOC undoubtedly benefited from the trading and pastoral endeavours of the trekboers, it did little to control or support them in their quest for land. The high proportion of single Dutch men led to their taking indigenous women as wives and companions and they grew to be a sizeable population who spoke Dutch and were instrumental in developing the colony. These children did not attain the social or legal status accorded their fathers and this group became known as Basters, or bastards. The colonists, in their response to insurgent resistance from Khoi and San people. This ensured the men skilled in lightly armed, mounted. The resulting stream of disgruntled, Dutch-speaking, trained marksmen leaving the Cape hobbled the Dutch capability to crew their commandos and it also created belligerent, skilled groups of opportunists who harassed the indigenous populations the length of the Orange River. Once free of the colonies, these groups called themselves the Oorlam, in particular, the group led by Klaas Afrikaner became notorious. He attracted enough attention from the Dutch authorities to him to be rendered to the colony. One of the most influential of these Oorlam groups was the Griqua, in the 19th century, the Griqua controlled several political entities which were governed by Kapteins or Kaptyns and their Councils, with their own written constitutions. The Griqua had also adopted the Afrikaans language before their migrations. Adam Kok I, the first Kaptein of the Griqua and recognised by the British, was originally a slave who had bought his own freedom and he led his people north from the interior of the Cape Colony
8.
Nieuwe Republiek
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The Nieuwe Republiek was a small Boer republic, which existed from 1884 to 1888 in present-day South Africa. The Niewe Republiek or legally Nieuwe Republiek Zuid Afrika was a Boer Republic which was recognised only by the German Empire and its independence was proclaimed on August 16 of 1884 with land donated by the Zulu Kingdom through a treaty. It covered 13,600 square kilometres and the capital was Vryheid or Vrijheid, the founder and president until it requested incorporation by Transvaal on 20 July 1888 was Lucas Johannes Meijer, as Secretary of State acted in the same period Daniel Johannes Esselen. On August 5,1884 the Boers formed the Nieuwe Republiek with recognition by Germany, ZAR, British annexation of the Zulu territory resulted in a revolt, led by Dinizulu who was defeated by the British and king Dinizulu was tried for high treason in Eshowe, and sentenced. The annexation of Zululand did not leave much hope for security in the Nieuwe Republiek against British imperialism, on July 20 of 1888 the New Republic was incorporated with the Transvaal on its own request, although enjoying considerable autonomy. The relations between the Boers and the Zulu continued stable until the break-out of the Second Anglo-Boer War, in June 1900 the British forces entered Vryheid, the capital. In March 1901 he declared martial law in the region, after the Second Boer War the territory was transferred to the British Colony of Natal
9.
Great Zimbabwe
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Great Zimbabwe is a ruined city in the south-eastern hills of Zimbabwe near Lake Mutirikwe and the town of Masvingo. It was the capital of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe during the countrys Late Iron Age, construction on the monument began in the 11th century and continued until the 15th century. The most widely-accepted modern archaeological theory is that the edifices were erected by the ancestral Shona, the stone city spans an area of 722 hectares which, at its peak, could have housed up to 18,000 people. It is recognised as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, Great Zimbabwe is believed to have served as a royal palace for the local monarch. As such, it would have used as the seat of political power. Among the edifices most prominent features were its walls, some of which were over five metres high, eventually, the city was abandoned and fell into ruin. The earliest known mention of the Great Zimbabwe ruins was in 1531 by Vicente Pegado, captain of the Portuguese garrison of Sofala. The first confirmed visits by Europeans were in the late 19th century, Great Zimbabwe has since been adopted as a national monument by the Zimbabwean government, and the modern independent state was named for it. The word great distinguishes the site from the hundreds of small ruins, now known as zimbabwes. There are 200 such sites in southern Africa, such as Bumbusi in Zimbabwe and Manyikeni in Mozambique, with monumental, mortarless walls, Zimbabwe is the Shona name of the ruins, first recorded in 1531 by Vicente Pegado, Captain of the Portuguese Garrison of Sofala. Pegado noted that The natives of the country call these edifices Symbaoe, the name contains dzimba, the Shona term for houses. There are two theories for the etymology of the name, the first proposes that the word is derived from Dzimba-dza-mabwe, translated from the Karanga dialect of Shona as large houses of stone. A second suggests that Zimbabwe is a form of dzimba-hwe. The majority of scholars believe that it was built by members of the Gokomere culture, a few believe that the ancestors of the Lemba or Venda were responsible, or cooperated with the Gokomere in the construction. The Great Zimbabwe area was settled by the century of the common era. Between the fourth and the centuries, communities of the Gokomere or Ziwa cultures farmed the valley, and mined and worked iron. These are the earliest Iron Age settlements in the area identified from archaeological diggings, construction of the stone buildings started in the 11th century and continued for over 300 years. The ruins at Great Zimbabwe are some of the oldest and largest structures located in Southern Africa, and are the second oldest after nearby Mapungubwe in South Africa
10.
Pretoria
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Pretoria is a city in the northern part of Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is one of the three capital cities, serving as the seat of the executive branch of government. Pretoria is the part of the Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality which was formed by the amalgamation of several former local authorities including Centurion. There have been proposals to change the name of Pretoria itself to Tshwane, the elder Pretorius had become a national hero of the Voortrekkers after his victory over Dingane and the Zulus in the Battle of Blood River. The elder Pretorius also negotiated the Sand River Convention, in which Britain acknowledged the independence of the Transvaal and it became the capital of the South African Republic on 1 May 1860. The founding of Pretoria as the capital of the South African Republic can be seen as marking the end of the Boers settlement movements of the Great Trek, during the First Boer War, the city was besieged by Republican forces in December 1880 and March 1881. The peace treaty ended the war was signed in Pretoria on 3 August 1881 at the Pretoria Convention. The Second Boer War resulted in the end of the Transvaal Republic, the city surrendered to British forces under Frederick Roberts on 5 June 1900 and the conflict was ended in Pretoria with the signing of the Peace of Vereeniging on 31 May 1902. The Pretoria Forts were built for the defence of the city just prior to the Second Boer War, though some of these forts are today in ruins, a number of them have been preserved as national monuments. The Boer Republics of the ZAR and the Orange River Colony were united with the Cape Colony, Pretoria then became the administrative capital of the whole of South Africa, with Cape Town the legislative capital and Bloemfontein served as the judicial capital. Between 1910 and 1994, the city was also the capital of the province of Transvaal, on 14 October 1931, Pretoria achieved official city status. When South Africa became a republic in 1961, Pretoria remained its administrative capital and it lies at an altitude of about 1,339 m above sea level, in a warm, sheltered, fertile valley, surrounded by the hills of the Magaliesberg range. Pretoria has a subtropical climate with long hot rainy summers and short cool to cold. The city experiences the typical winters of South Africa with cold, clear nights, although the average lows during winter are mild it can get bitterly cold due to the clear skies, with nighttime low temperatures in recent years in the range of 2 to −5 °C. The average annual temperature is 18.7 °C, rain is chiefly concentrated in the summer months, with drought conditions prevailing over the winter months, when frosts may be sharp. Snowfall is a rare event, snowflakes were spotted in 1959,1968 and 2012 in the city. During a nationwide heatwave in November 2011, Pretoria experienced temperatures that reached 39 °C, similar record-breaking extreme heat events also occurred in January 2013, when Pretoria experienced temperatures exceeding 37 °C on several days. The year 2014 was one of the wettest on record for the city, a total of 914 mm fell up to the end of December, with 220 mm recorded in this month alone
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