• Once upon a time, long long ago, due to a property boom, many tribes migrate to Southern Africa and kindly relieve the local San and smaller tribes of their land.
• A drunken Portuguese sailor stumbles onto the Southern tip of Africa in the early fifteen hundreds, then Europe promptly forgets about it for a couple of hundred years.
• A Dutch man on his way to India opens a fresh fruit and veg store in Cape Town.
• The British like the fruit and nab the Cape of Good Hope in 1806.
• The Dutch take it back; the British take it back again etc, etc.
• The Dutch farmers (Boers) think this is a bit rude and head north to found their own republics.
• The Xhosa and Zulu tribes ‘welcome’ them with open arms and sharp spears.
• In 1867 someone finds the biggest diamond in the world and a different someone finds gold. Plenty of people and money flood in.
• The British, through Cecil John Rhodes, steal the lot.
• The local tribes ‘volunteer’ to work in the mines and to give up their land.
• The Boers and British have two wars (the score was tied at one each).
• The Union of South Africa is created in 1910 and South Africa becomes a Republic in 1961.
• The political system of Apartheid leads to the instigation of sanctions.
• The early 90’s sees the release of Madiba (Nelson Mandela) and an end to apartheid.
• First free and fair elections are held in 1994.
• The current President is Thabo Mbeki.

If lost head to:
29 00 S, 24 00 E

How big:
1,219,912 sq km
(almost as big as two chunks of Texas, just way more perdy)

Border Buddies:
Botswana 1,840 km
Lesotho 909 km
Mozambique 491 km
Namibia 967 km
Swaziland 430 km
Zimbabwe 225 km

Climate:
Mostly semiarid; subtropical along east coast; sunny days, cool nights

Highest point:
Mafadi 3,450m

Natural stuff:
gold, chromium, antimony, coal, iron ore, manganese, nickel, phosphates,
tin, uranium, gem diamonds, platinum, copper, vanadium, salt, natural gas

How many of us:
44,187,637 (give or take a few)

Breakdown of the Rainbow nation:
79% Black African
9.6% White
8.9% Colored
2.5% Indian/Asian

Religions:
11.1% Zion Christian
8.2% Pentecostal/Charismatic
7.1% Catholic
6.8% Methodist
6.7% Dutch Reformed
3.8% Anglican
36% Other Christian
1.5% Islam (and growing)
2.3% Other
1.4% Unspecified
15.1% None

Languages:
23.8% Zulu
17.6% Xhosa
13.3% Afrikaans
9.4% Sepedi
8.2% English
8.2% Setswana
7.9% Sesotho
4.4% Xitsonga
7.2% Other
Dont stress if you only speak English, most South Africans speak more than one language.

People who can read good:
total population: 86.4%

Jobless:
26.6%

People below poverty line:
50%

Time difference:
UTC+2 (7 hours ahead of Washington, DC during Standard Time)

• Take your sleeping bag & toiletries on the plane with you, to make life a bit easier should your luggage be delayed and to protect your sleeping bag from conveyor belt damage. Just ensure you don’t have any sharp items (e.g. tweezers, razors, nail scissors etc) amongst your toiletries.
• Remember to go to the dentist before you leave on a long journey. There is nothing more unpleasant than having to deal with a root-canal while the rest of the gang are living it up on some scenic beach on the Wild Coast.