Covering a huge swathe of land, washed by the Atlantic and Indian oceans, South Africa has enormous wealth above and below ground, making it one of the richest natural storehouses on the planet.

In 1869, diamonds (and, later, gold) were discovered, attracting huge numbers of fortune hunters. President Paul Kruger of the Transvaal (now Gauteng) invoked strict franchise requirements. Britain’s attempts at intervention resulted in the Anglo-Boer War; the British victory in 1902 established the Union of South Africa in 1910.

In 1948, the National Party came to power and cemented the policy of apartheid – officially, the separate development of all racial groups but, effectively, the creation of semi-autonomous ‘homelands’ for non-whites and the preservation of white supremacy. Four ‘homelands’ were created, comprising 13 per cent of all land in the country. Black opposition to apartheid was brutally repressed. In public, the international community reacted strongly against apartheid and maintained economic sanctions against South Africa, but there was largely clandestine support from the West for the South African government.

In February 1989, FW De Klerk became national party president. South Africa’s foreign creditors were also demanding wholesale changes in domestic policy to safeguard their investments. Apartheid no longer seemed viable, and it lost support from the white-dominated business world. The De Klerk government removed the ban of anti-apartheid groups, and released the jailed ANC leadership including, after 27 years of imprisonment, its leader, Nelson Mandela.

By 1993, all three main parties (ANC, Inkatha and the National Party) had laid out a blueprint for a new constitutional future for South Africa, the centerpiece of which was the first genuinely inclusive national election in South Africa, held in 1994. Nelson Mandela became the country’s president.

As the attention shifted away from politics, the focus once again landed on South Africa's magnificent landscape; its desert dunes, savannah, subtropical forests and white-sand coast. Its game viewing equals the best in Africa: where else can you find both penguins and elephants? There are over 1000 bird species, and the Western Cape alone has one of the richest floral kingdoms in the world.

The country's fascinating human and cultural history does not just start in Apartheid, but stretches back to the aboriginal San (Bushmen) and Khoikhoi, through the black African peoples to the latest arrivals, the Afrikaans and British. Archbishop Desmond Tutu named the newly integrated South Africa ‘the rainbow nation’. It is a fitting name for a country with 11 official languages and people of all colors, race and creed, living in a vividly colored and sculpted landscape. No wonder its cities are so cosmopolitan.

The South Africans are charming hosts; most speak English, and all have a fascinating story to tell.

Geography
The Republic of South Africa lies at the southern end of the African continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the east and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and is bordered to the north by Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Swaziland and totally encloses Lesotho. South Africa has three major geographical regions, namely plateau, mountains and the coastal belt. The high plateau has sharp escarpments which rise above the plains, or veld. Despite two major river systems, the Limpopo and the Orange, most of the plateau lacks surface water. Along the coastline are sandy beaches and rocky coves, and the vegetation is shrublike. The mountainous regions which run along the coastline from the Cape of Good Hope to the Limpopo Valley in the northeast of the country are split into the Drakensberg, Nuweveldberg and Stormberg ranges.
Following the 1994 elections, South Africa was organized into nine regions. These comprise the Western Cape with its provincial and national capital of Cape Town, the Eastern Cape with its provincial capital of Bisho, the Northern Cape with its provincial capital of Kimberley, KwaZulu-Natal with its provincial capital of Pietermaritzburg, the Free State with its provincial capital of Bloemfontein, the North West Province with its provincial capital of Mmabatho, Limpopo (formerly called the Northern Province) with its provincial capital of Polokwane (formerly called Pietersburg), Mpumalanga with its provincial capital of Nelspruit, and Gauteng with its provincial capital of Johannesburg.