South Africa: History, Apartheid, and Nelson Mandela

I’ve chosen to write about South Africa as I would like know more about the things that the country has been through and the people that have made it to what it is today. Since there’s so much to write about I’ll pick out the most important topics, among other things apartheid and the Nelson Mandela that I just saw a commercial about in the TV.

General facts about South Africa:

Geography

South Africa is a republic located in the very southern part of Africa. South Africa is the 25th-largest country in the world with a total of 1.221.037 square kilometres. The population of South Africa is just about 47.900.000 where 79% are black. The variety of landscapes in South Africa is amazing, here is everything from the desert to savannas, mountainous areas with snow-covered peaks and thousand kilometres coastline surrounding the country. South Africa they’ve subtropical climate but there’s also areas with deserts like in the northern Africa. A good thing for the economy of South Africa is their tourism. As one the most visited tourism destinations in Africa, South Africa gets a lot of their income from tourism.

The colonies

The Portuguese were the first to discover South Africa (Except from the original inhabitants) as they were travelling to India. In 1652 they founded “Cap the Good Hope”, which is now a city in the very southern tip of the republic, and Cape Town – which is South Africa’s second most populated city-. Later the Dutch built a port in South Africa. They were the first to built colonies and they started the trend. In 1805 the British took over Cape Town and made it to a British colony. After that moment the British made even more colonies in South Africa and most of it became British. That’s why the most spoken language in South Africa today is English although most of the population is black.