The modern Republic of South Africa comprises nine distinct provinces: Eastern Cape, Free State, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumulanga, Northern Cape, Limpopo, North West Province and Western Cape. The country, as its name suggests, is located on the southern tip of continental Africa, with the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the Indian Ocean to the east. Bordering countries are Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland and Zimbabwe, with Lesotho being completely encircled by South Africa.

The Republic of South Africa has 3 capitals, Pretoria (Administrative), Bloemfontein (Judicial) and Cape Town (Legislative). The population stands at just under 44.5 million, with a work force of around 15 million.

Whilst there is evidence that early hominids (precursors of modern humans) occupied the region as early as three million years ago, the recorded history of South Africa did not start until the mid-1600s, with the arrival of the Dutch East India Company. Dutch settlers gradually took control of the region, and in later years conflict arose in the form of the Boer Wars in which Britain fought against the Dutch farmers. The first Boer War took place between December 1880 and March 1881; the second between October 1899 and May 1902.

In 1948, shortly after World War II, the National Party began increasingly to expand its apartheid polices of racial segregation, which even since 1994 and the election of Nelson Mandela as the country’s first black president, still has negative repercussions for South Africa.

The South African economy is the largest stable economy in Africa, but is still recovering from the problems caused by apartheid; however the country has a rich supply of precious ores and minerals such as chromium, gold, platinum and also diamonds, of which South Africa is the world’s main supplier. Industries within the country include vehicle manufacturing, ship repair, iron and steel production, metalworking, chemicals and an agricultural sector producing a variety grains, meats, dairy products and wool. The country also has well-defined legal, financial, transport and communication sectors.

Tourism is also important to the South African economy, a report by the World Travel and Tourist Council showed that tourism contributed an estimated 124,02 billion Rand to the countries GDP in 2005, an increase of 13% over the previous year. South Africa has one of the top ten largest stock exchanges in the world, based in Johannesburg.

According to the Transformation index published by Bertelsmann Stiftung, South Africa is placed joint 16th with Botswana and Bulgaria for democratic and economic development out of 119 national economies. The index consists of countries undergoing transformation to market-based economies.

South Africa is also looking at a number of ways to lessen reliance on foreign sources of technologies and imports of such things as fuel. Two examples being computer operating systems, such as UBUNTU Linux, which is distributed completely free of charge. The second example is biofuel, which is produced from maize with the end product being ethanol; by 2013 the South African government is aiming for around 40% of the countries renewable energy to be from biofuels.