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South Africa

I am going to tell you about South Africa, one of the Englishspeaking countries.

Southerly Africa, officially Republic of South Africa, is situated at the southern tip of the continent of Africa. South Africa borders on Namibia to the north-west, Botswana and Zimbabwe to the north, and Mozambique and Swaziland to the north-east and east. Lesotho, an independent constitutional monarchy is located inside the Republic of South Africa.

After the British seized the Cape of Good Hope area in 1806, many of the Dutch settlers trekked north. The discovery of diamonds in 1867 and gold in 1886 spurred wealth and immigration and intensified the subjugation of the native inhabitants. The Boers resisted British encroachments, but were defeated in the Boer War (1899-1902). As a result, Union of South Africa operated under a policy of apartheid — the separate development of the races. The 1990s brought an end to apartheid politically and ushered in black majority rule.

Total territory of South Africa is 1,220,000 square kilometres. The climate is mostly semiarid, subtropical along east coast; it has sunny days, cool nights. The natural resources of South Africa are gold, chromium, coal, iron ore, nickel, phosphates, tin, uranium, gem diamonds, platinum, copper, vanadium, salt, natural gas.

The population of the country is about 44 million people.

As to the ethnic groups there are 76 % black people, 14 % white people. There are eleven official languages, including Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Pedi, Sotho, Swazi, etc.

Government type is republic. The capital is Pretoria. Cape Town is the legislative centre and Bloemfontein the judicial centre. Administrative divisions are nine provinces.

South Africa became self-governing on May, 31, 1910. Before that, it was one of the numerous English colonies.

Legal system is based on the Roman-Dutch law and the English common law. The chief of state is President and Executive Deputy President. The president is both the chief of state and head of government.