With a dynamic fusion of African, European and Asian influences, South Africa is a unique experience of culture, food, language, music, art and theatre. With a population of over 45 million, we are shaping a nation from our 11 official languages and colourful heritage.

Our diversity

Although we treasure our varied and diverse cultural heritages, post-apartheid South Africa doesn’t focus on them too much. But your clients are often fascinated by our diversity, so here is a rather simplified breakdown to enable you to answer tricky questions. Indigenous Africans fall roughly into two broad groups – those of Khoi-San descent, and those of Bantu descent. The Khoi-San people lived all over Southern Africa prior to the arrival of the first European settlers in 1652, either as hunter-gatherers or as pastoralists. Today, many people of Khoi- San descent live in the cities and have become totally integrated with urban South African life, but a few still live out in the desert regions and have preserved their language and culture.

The Bantu-speaking peoples can also be divided into two broad groups – Ngunispeaking people, and speakers of other African languages. The isiZulu and isiXhosaspeaking peoples are of the Nguni group, originate mostly from the coastal areas – KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape. Most of the speakers of other languages, such as seSotho, seTswana, seTsonga and tshiVenda, live in the interior of the country. Of course, these divisions are historical and you will find that the differences between people tend to blur – especially in cities where people speak a number of languages. The rest of the population’s roots are in the waves of immigration over the past 400 years. The largest group is of European origin. Some of the older families are descended from the early British, Dutch, German or French settlers. And many South Africans of Portuguese origins may have originally settled in Mozambique or Angola generations ago and only recently moved down to South Africa.

The Jewish community came largely from eastern Europe and the Baltic states. Other immigrant populations include the many people of Asian descent. Of these the major groups are the Cape Malays (who are actually of Javan descent, but what’s in a name?), the many Indians who have settled mostly around Durban and a large Chinese population. The Javanese/Malays were brought out as slaves to the Cape. While the Indians were brought out as indentured labourers to work on the sugar plantations of KwaZulu Natal. Others came out to South Africa as traders. So, the best way for your clients to appreciate our cultural diversity is to arrive without too many preconceptions, as we are very likely to surprise them. We all – no matter what our ethnic backgrounds – share aspects of each other’s cultures and use phrases and words from each other’s languages. We invite your clients to come share with us, celebrate with us, and experience the adventure of living in a truly multicultural society.

We are proud to say that our constitution enshrines freedom of religion and there are adherents of many different faiths in our country. Not surprisingly, many of our citizens follow one of the world’s major religions – Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism. We also have adherents of smaller faiths, such as Bahai, Rastafarianism and others. The concrete evidence of these religions is to be utiful temples, attractive synagogues and magnificently decorated mosques attest found in our many beautiful places of worship. Lovely old stone cathedrals, bea to our celebration of religious diversity. And, of course, we do have some indigenous religions. The Zionist Christian Church, usually called the ZCC, has its headquarters in Moria in Limpopo province. Combining elements of traditional African beliefs with Christian values, this church is the biggest in South Africa. Very similar, but confined to KwaZulu-Natal, the Shembe Church is also an eclectic mix of Christian beliefs and traditional Zulu rituals. Combining charismatic Christian beliefs is our home-grown Rhema Church, which is based in Johannesburg, draws its many adherents mostly from the affluent northern suburbs of that city.