History of South Africa

With a population of about 60 million people, South Africa is one of the largest countries in Africa, covering an area of 0.471 million square miles and her land border stretches 3,021 miles in length. South Africa is bordered by six countries: Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Botswana, Swaziland, and Lesotho. The Botswana-South Africa border is the longest among these borders, while its border with Zimbabwe is the shortest. Zulu, South Africa's largest ethnic group, has a majority of its people in the Gauteng and KwaZulu Natal Provinces. Xhosa, the second-largest ethnic group, is located in the Western Cape Province and Eastern Cape Province.
There are also South African ethnic groups in the country's boundaries in neighboring countries. The Nguni-speaking Swazi people, for instance, constitute almost the entire population of Swaziland, while there are at least 1.3 million Sesotho speakers living in Lesotho. Anyways that has been as a result of invasion of Africa by intruders who divided the continent for their own selfish gain. There are at least 35 languages indigenous to South Africa, 11 of which are the country's official languages. Sotho, Swati, Tsonga, Ndebele, Pedi, Tswana, Venḓa, Afrikaans Xhosa, and Zulu are all official languages in South Africa. English, which is the 11th of them, is the primary language used in parliamentary and state discourse, even though all the official languages are equal in legal status. Christianity is the most dominant religion in South Africa, with various denominations. The country, however, remains a secular state with a diverse religious population, some of whom are Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, and traditional African religions.
 Studies show that there were human activities in the geographical space currently called South Africa, as far back as 100,000 years ago. Indigenous South Africans are collectively referred to as the Khoisan, the Khoi Khoi and the San. Back in 1488, the Portuguese sailor, Bartolomeu Dias was the first European to explore the coastline of South Africa. This was when he tried to discover a trade route to the Far East, through the southernmost cape of South Africa. In November 1497, a number of Portuguese ships under the command of Vasco da Gama, a Portuguese mariner, surrounded the Cape of Good Hope. South Africa`s Dutch colonization lasted from 1652 to 1815, while its British colonization was from 1852 to 1910, with Paul Kruger championing the fight for independence. The dreaded apartheid, on the other hand, lasted from 1928 to 1994, when one of it heroes; Nelson Mandela became the first black President. Unlike other countries` names with dramatic histories, the name, “South Africa,” simply originated from the country's geographic location at the southern part of Africa. Initially, the country was called the Union of South Africa in English and Unie van Zuid-Afrika in Dutch, however, by 1961, it was changed to the Republic of South Africa, called Republiek van Suid-Afrika in Afrikaans.

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