SOUTH AFRICA



Republic of South Africa

Republiek van Suid-Afrika

CAPITAL : Pretoria (administrative); Cape Town (legislative); Bloemfontein (judicial)

FLAG : The national flag, adopted in 1994, consists of a blue-black triangle placed vertical to the hoist and bordered in gold-yellow. Bands of red, white, green, white, and blue appear horizontally.

ANTHEM : Two anthems are currently in use: the official anthem, Die Stem van Suid-Afrika (The Call of South Africa), and Nkosi Sikelel' Afrika (God Bless Africa), a hymn adopted by most liberation groups.

MONETARY UNIT : The South African rand ( R ) is a paper currency of 100 cents. It is used throughout the South African monetary area. There are coins of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, and 50 cents and 1 rand, and notes of 2, 5, 10, 20, and 50 rand. R 1 = $0.1329 (or $1 = R 7.52) as of May 2003.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES : The metric system is in use.

HOLIDAYS : New Year's Day, 1 January; Republic Day, 31 May; Kruger Day, 10 October; Day of the Vow, 16 December; Christmas, 25 December; Goodwill Day, 26 December. Movable religious holidays include Good Friday and Ascension; Family Day is a movable secular holiday.

TIME : 2 PM = noon GMT.


DEPENDENCIES

South Africa has no territories or colonies. South Africa once maintained a civil administration and a military presence in Namibia (South West Africa). Namibia, a sovereign state, is discussed under its own heading elsewhere in this volume.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ballard, Sebastian. South Africa Handbook 2000. 4th ed. Bath: Footprint, 1999.

Barthorp, Michael. The Anglo-Boer Wars: The British and the Afrikaners, 1815–1902. New York: Blandford Press, 1987.

Black, David R., and Larry A. Swatuk (eds.). Bridging the Rift: The New South Africa in Africa. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1997.

Brewer, John D. After Soweto: An Unfinished Journey. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.

Buthelezi, Gatsha. South Africa: My Vision of the Future. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1990.

Crankshaw, Owen. Race, Class, and the Changing Division of Labor under Apartheid. New York: Routledge, 1997.

Davenport, T. R. H. South Africa: A Modern History. 4th ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991.

Fox, Roddy and Kate Rowntree. The Geography of South Africa in a Changing World. Oxford, Eng.: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Guest, Emma. Children of AIDS: Africa's Orphan Crisis. Sterling, Va.: Pluto Press, 2001.

Juckes, Tim J. Opposition in South Africa: The Leadership of Z. K. Matthews, Nelson Mandela, and Stephen Biko. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1995.

Kalley, Jacqueline A. South Africa under Apartheid: A Select and Annotated Bibliography. Westport, Conn.: Meckler, 1989.

Kanfer, Stefan. The Last Empire: De Beers, Diamonds and the World. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1993.

Keegan, Timothy J. Colonial South Africa and the Origins of the Racial Order. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1996.

Leach, Graham. The Afrikaners: Their Last Great Trek. London, England: Macmillan London, 1989.

Lemon, Anthony (ed.). The Geography of Change in South Africa. New York: J. Wiley, 1995.

Mandela, Nelson. The Struggle Is My Life. Rev. ed. New York: Pathfinders, 1986.

Marx, Anthony W. Lessons of Struggle: South African Internal Opposition, 1960–1990. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

McElrath, Karen (ed.). HIV and AIDS: A Global View. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002.

Meli, Francis. South Africa Belongs to Us : A History of the ANC. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988.

Price, Robert M. The Apartheid State in Crisis: Political Transformation in South Africa, 1975–1990. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.

Robinson, Jennifer. The Power of Apartheid: State, Power, and Space in South African Cities. Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann, 1996.

Rotberg, Robert I. Ending Autocracy, Enabling Democracy: The Tribulations of Southern Africa, 1960–2000. Cambridge, Mass.: World Peace Foundation, 2002.

Smith, David Marshall. Apartheid in South Africa, 3rd ed. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Summers, Randal W., and Allan M. Hoffman (ed.). Domestic Violence: A Global View. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002.

Thompson, Leonard Monteath. A History of South Africa. Rev. ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.

Waldmeir, Patti. Anatomy of a Miracle: The End of Apartheid and the Birth of the New South Africa. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997.

Watson, R. L. South Africa in Pictures. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications Co., 1988.

Wepman, Dennis. Desmond Tutu. New York: F. Watts, 1989.

Woods, Donald. Biko. 3rd rev. ed. New York: H. Holt, 1991.

Worden, Nigel. The Making of Modern South Africa: Conquest, Segregation and Apartheid. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1995.

User Contributions:

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UPDATE the website!!
"There are coins of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, and 50 cents and 1 rand, and notes of 2, 5, 10, 20, and 50 rand" - incorrect!

There are coins of 5, 10, 20, 50 cents and 1 rand, 2 rand 5 rand, and notes of 10, 20, 50, 100, 200 rand

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