South Africa And Lesotho In One World

AFRICAN TERRITORY: A VIBRANT AND MULTICULTURAL WORLD

INTRODUCTION
Human beings are distinguished from others by having different cultures and ways of seeing and living life. In this written work we are going to make an effort to get closer to the character of two countries which belong to the African continent; which is the cradle of humanity, and the oldest inhabitedterritory on Earth. These countries are South Africa and Lesotho. Through the research work we expect to encourage interest in learning not only the culture of these two countries but also their geography, weather, history, education, style of life, economy, religion and literature. We will develop them as separable sections on the general characteristics of these countries.
The first topic that we manage isthe geographic aspects of these countries that comprise the physical features, and then we decided to express how the people of these countries lived and perceived life. History will encompass the period from the first inhabitants of what is known as South Africa and Lesotho until the arrival of the Europeans colonizers, as well as the changes that have been generated in the two countries followingthe abolition of slavery and racial problems that made these people raised their voices and fought against any form of discrimination. Finally, we refer to literature and the influence on its societies.
In advance, we would like to thanks the opportunity that has given us to meet the plurality understood as diversity and multiculturalism as a harmonious relationship between differentcultures. At the same time, it is good to note that the achievement of this work have the support of the First Political Secretary of the South African Embassy in Venezuela “Solomzi Mhlana”, which supplies us information about the country.
We can start our small tour about South Africa and Lesotho, which are constituted by people who share a common ancestry that goes back about 2000 years old.Moreover, they have differences that make them unique.

THE REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA


GEOGRAPHY
Geographically, the Republic of South Africa occupies the Southern tip of the continent of Africa. Its jagged northern border is shared by Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, and Mozambique, and it completely surrounds Lesotho. On the western side is the Atlantic Ocean and onthe Eastern and Southern sides the Indian Ocean. (See appendix “C-1”) Its main feature is a high central plateau that covers much of the country and sweeps up toward the north, surrounded by a mountain bulwark dividing it from the mostly narrow coastal plain to the east, the south, and the southwest, with a gradual falling off from the high plateau toward the west. There are few major rivers andeven the biggest, the Orange, may be reduced to a trickle by frequent drought (Holt-Biddle, 2007, p.4).
In addition, South Africa is a medium-sized country, with a total land area of slightly more than 1.2-million square kilometers, making it roughly the same size as Niger, Angola, Mali and Colombia. South Africa measures some 1 600km from north to south, and roughly the same from east towest. This country has three capitals: Cape Town, Bloemfontein and Pretoria. However, none of them are the most important city of this country; the largest and most important city is Johannesburg, the economic heartland of the country. (South Africa info, 2010)
In this country, there are 11 official languages that the Constitution recognizes, but it is IsiZulu the mother tongue of 23, 8% ofthe population according to Census 2001. Moreover, English it is only the mother tongue of 8, 2% of the population, despite this, it is the language most widely understood, and the second language of the majority of South Africans. (Burger, 2007, p. 2).
WEATHER
South Africa´s location in the Southern Hemisphere obviously makes its seasons the reverse of those in the Northern...