Matthew Keeling

Ms. Miller

Honors Geography

August 31, 2017

South Africa Essay

South Africa’s Capitals are Pretoria, Cape Town, and Bloemfentein. Pretoria being the

Administrative branch, Cape Town is the Legislative branch, and Bloemfentein is the Judicial

branch. South Africa has the population of about 55 million. South Africa is the 36th largest

export economy in the world and the 55th most complex economy in the world. South Africa is

rich in many minerals such as Gold, Diamonds, coal, oil and Platinum being some of their top

industries of profit. There biggest importer of South African goods is China, India, USA, and

Germany.

South Africa went through the Apartheid between the years 1948 and 1993. The

Apartheid was passed three years after the 1913 Land act. It was when the government passed

institutional racism separating blacks and whites from different parts of the country, banning

interracial marriage, forcing non-whites to have documents to be allowed in certain areas. This

was also to limit contact between whites and non-whites. The Apartheid laws were further

reinforced through the 50 year period until 1993 when President F.W. de Klerk, and Nelson

Mandela worked out an agreement to repeal the Apartheid. An interesting fact about South

Africa is that the Western Cape region of South Africa is home to the best fossils of early

dinosaurs.
 South Africa’s relations with its neighboring countries have a very similar pattern of

having rocky relations during the 80’s, then getting better post Apartheid abolishment.