South Africa

Discover South Africa

Fun Foods

Braai (Boerewors), Bobotie, Bunny Chow, Vetkoek, Biltong, Malva Pudding, Melktert

Most countries have one capital city. South Africa has three.

The president works in Pretoria. The lawmakers meet in Cape Town. And the highest courts sit in Bloemfontein.

The country split the job three ways when it was formed in 1910 by joining together rival territories, so that no single city would hold all the power.

South Africa has been home to people for an incredibly long time. In caves near Johannesburg, scientists have found fossils of human ancestors more than two million years old, some of the oldest ever discovered. The area is nicknamed the Cradle of Humankind.

Much later, in 1652, Dutch traders built a settlement at the southern tip of Africa, where Cape Town stands today. They and the British who followed took land from the people already living there and brought enslaved people to work it.

Then came the country's darkest chapter. Beginning in 1948, the white-minority government made a system called apartheid the law of the land.

Apartheid means "apartness," and it separated people by the color of their skin. The Black majority were forced to live in certain areas, sent to worse schools, and not even allowed to vote.

Many people bravely resisted. One leader, named Nelson Mandela, was sent to prison for 27 years. But protests at home and pressure from around the world kept growing.

In 1990, Mandela walked free. Four years later, in 1994, South Africans of every color voted together for the first time, and they chose Mandela as the country's first Black president.

Today, Cape Town sits beneath the flat top of Table Mountain. Nearby at Boulders Beach, you can watch a colony of real penguins waddle across the sand, which surprises people who don't expect penguins in Africa.

Inland, Kruger National Park is one of the best places on Earth to spot the "Big Five": lions, elephants, rhinos, leopards, and buffalo, all in the wild.

For food, a braai is a South African barbecue, where boerewors sausage sizzles over the coals. Try bobotie, a baked dish of spiced minced meat with a soft egg topping.

And finish with malva pudding, a warm sponge cake soaked in a sweet, creamy sauce.