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.

Read about the Culture of South Africa. More about South Africa's Culture.

Read about the Geography of South Africa.

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:

Report this comment as inappropriate
Mar 5, 2010 @ 6:18 pm
love this website, so much useful info! i think that it is great and awesome!
Report this comment as inappropriate
Mar 17, 2010 @ 3:03 am
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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