South Africa is a country at the southern tip of Africa, bordered by Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Eswatini, and completely surrounding Lesotho. With 2,798 kilometres of coastline along the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean, it covers 1,221,037 square kilometres and is home to over 63 million people across nine provinces.
The region has supported human life for more than 100,000 years, with archaeological evidence of hominid species dating back 2.5 million years. The indigenous Khoisan were followed by Bantu-speaking peoples migrating southward between 2,000 and 1,000 years ago. Dutch colonisation began in 1652 at Table Bay, later ceded to British control in 1806. The 20th century saw the imposition of apartheid in 1948, a system of institutionalised racial segregation that was dismantled through decades of internal and international resistance led by the African National Congress and other activists. Universal elections in 1994 established South Africa as a multi-party democracy. The country’s extraordinary biodiversity, varied landscapes—from the Drakensberg mountains to the Karoo semi-desert—and complex conservation challenges make it a focal point for wildlife research, ecotourism and discussions of land use in post-colonial Africa.
