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South Africa

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

SoutherlyAfrica, officially Republic of South Africa, is situated at thesouthern tip of the continent of Africa. South Africa borders on Namibiato the north-west, Botswana and Zimbabwe to the north, and Mozambiqueand Swaziland to the north-east and east. Lesotho, an independentconstitutional monarchy is located inside the Republic of South Africa.

Afterthe British seized the Cape of Good Hope area in 1806, many of theDutch settlers trekked north. The discovery of diamonds in 1867 and goldin 1886 spurred wealth and immigration and intensified the subjugationof the native inhabitants. The Boers resisted British encroachments, butwere defeated in the Boer War (1899-1902). As a result, Union of SouthAfrica operated under a policy of apartheid — the separate developmentof the races. The 1990s brought an end to apartheid politically andushered in black majority rule.

Total territory of South Africais 1,220,000 square kilometres. The climate is mostly semiarid,subtropical along east coast; it has sunny days, cool nights. Thenatural 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.

Asto 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 andBloemfontein the judicial centre. Administrative divisions are nineprovinces.

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

Legalsystem is based on the Roman-Dutch law and the English common law. Thechief of state is President and Executive Deputy President. Thepresident is both the chief of state and head of government.