Discuss The Southern Part Of The African Continent

South Africa
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South Africa
South Africa is a country in the Southern part of the African continent. It’s neighbors include Namibia to the West, Botswana to the North, Mozambique and Swaziland to the North East. It has a long coastline with the Indian Ocean to the East and South East and the Atlantic Ocean to the South West. It surrounds the kingdom of Lesotho from all sides. The capital city of South Africa is Pretoria, whereas the largest city in the country is Johannesburg (Dooling, 2007).
It is ranked at position 25 and 24 globally in terms of size by land and population respectively. It was first colonized by the Dutch (1652- 1815) then the British, with the first British settlers arriving in March 1820 (Dooling, 2007). Being a country abundantly endowed with natural resources such as minerals, fertile farm lands and favorable climate, South Africa was one of the most sought after regions in Africa by Western colonialists, mainly the British and the Dutch. The discovery of diamonds around the Orange Free State and the Transvaal state in 1867 led to escalated invasions of Britons in those areas leading to the Boer war between October 1899 and May 1902. The Boers, also known as Afrikaners, were the descendants of the Dutch who had already settled in Sothern Africa long before the British settlers arrived (Dooling, 2007).
The war ended with the official signing of the Treaty of Vareeninging between representatives of Great Britain and the Boer states. During the 1940’s the Afrikaner National Party gained a majority support and was able to establish the Apartheid (Sonneborn, 2010). The Apartheid was meant to be a means of enhancing control of the whites over the economic and social system of South Africa while maintaining the racial separat...