9781422278901

S O U T H A F R I C A

South Africa: An Introduction

S outh Africa is a place of rugged natural beauty, vibrant cultural life, and complicated political history. Even its location on the globe is one of extremes, as it forms the southernmost tip of the African continent, the only nation on earth to border both the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. To its northare the countries of Botswana,Namibia, andZimbabwe,withsmaller Swaziland and a shared short border with Mozambique to the northeast. In the eastern part of the country is the landlocked kingdom of Lesotho, which exists entirely within South Africa. At about 471,000 square miles (1.08 million sq km), South Africa is twice the size of Texas. It is often called “a world in one country” for its Words to Understand apartheid  a system of racial segregation imposed throughout South Africa from 1948 through 1991 biodiversity  describing a wide variety of life in a place, ecosystem, or habitat hunter-gatherer  a human who obtains food by foraging for wild plants and animals migrant  one who goes from place to place, usually in search of food or work segregate  to keep groups apart from each other

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