SOUTH AFRICA, an ambiguous geo graphical term embracing (a) only British South Africa, or (h) British South Africa plus Portuguese East Africa and that territory known as German South-West Africa. Although the term is generally applied to that part of the continent south of the Zambesi, below the 14th degree of southern longitude, a portion of British South Africa, viz., North East Rhodesia, reaches eight degrees further north, to Lake Tanganyika. If we accept that boundary line as the extreme northern limit, then South Africa would include not only the whole of Portuguese East Africa and a third of German East Africa, but also entire Ger man South-West Africa and three-fourths of Angola. Officially, however, the British terri tory north of the Zambesi is styled British Central Africa. Leaving out Portuguese possessions, for which see PORTUGAL; and the former German territories, for which see SOUTH-WEST AFRICA and EAST AFRICA, there remains the subject of this article, British South Africa.
This great territory comprises the Union of South Africa (q.v.), composed by the Cape of Good Hope, Natal, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, Rhodesia and Northern Rhodesia, the Bechuanaland Protectorate, Swaziland and the native territory of Basuto land. All these will be found under separate heads. Together with Walfish Bay (430 square miles), the area of British South Africa is 1,205,357 square miles, with a population at the last census of 8,102,861, being approxi mately 1,310,027 whites, 6,610,535 natives and 182,299 Asiatics. Geographically it lies be tween 8° and 35° south, and 12 and east. The Belgian Kongo and former German East Africa bound it on the north, the Nyasaland Protectorate and Portuguese East Africa on the east, Angola (Portuguese) and German South-West Africa, now called the South-West Africa Protectorate, on the west. The ex treme length, from the Kongo border to Cape Agulhas, is close on 2,000 miles; greatest breadth, 900 miles. Only Cape Colony and Natal border on the coast, washed in the west by the Atlantic Ocean, and in the south and east by the Indian Ocean. The toal coastline of Cape Colony, from the Orange to the Umzimkulu estuaries, is roughly 1,300 miles; that of Natal, about 380 miles. Prominent headlands along the coast are Cape Castle, Cape of Good Hope, Danger Point, Cape Agulhas, Cape Saint Francis and Cape Recife, enclosing a number of inlets or exposed road steads —Table Bay, Saint Helena Bay, False Bay, Plettenbergs Bay, Mossel Bay, Saldanha Bay and Algoa Bay. For the most part the coastline is low-lying and inhospitable; the harbors are mostly unprotected and the river mouths are choked by sand-bars. Behind the seaboard rise ramparts of hills shutting off the interior. In places the mountains, which run parallel to the coast, run down close to the sea, as at Table Bay (3,582 feet high). The
highest points are in the southeast, on the Drakensberg, which in places rises to a height of 10,600 feet. The various ranges almost form a succession of steps leading to the great table-land of the interior. The Transvaal is practically a large plateau from 4,000 to 6,000 feet above sea-level. The High Veld, the high est part of the Transvaal Province has con sequently a healthy and bracing climate. A large part of the interior plateau, of which the northern part includes Rhodesia and Nyasa land, is flat or only diversified by worn remnants of hills. The great Kalahari Desert and other extensive areas are largely or wholly semi-desert or °Karroo?) while the most fertile regions lie on the southern and eastern coast lands. With little interruption a similar ter raced formation extends throughout the south eastern region between Kafirland and the Limpopo. The Lobombo Mountains, a single chain of about 3,000 feet, traverse Zululand, Swaziland and the Transvaal, while the inner and higher escarpments, sweeping round the extremity of the continent from the Orange estuary to the Limpopo, are here continued beyond the Stormberg as the Randberg or Drakenberg range, and reach an altitude up to 10,000 feet. On the outer slope, falling sea ward through a series of terraces, lie Natal and Zululand. The nucleus of these highlands is formed by the Antelope or Potong Moun tain at the converging point of Basutoland, Natal and the Orange River Free State, and constitutes the main divide between the waters flowing west to the Orange Basin and east to the Indian Ocean. From here the Draken berg turns northward and culminates in the highest point of the Transvaal, the Mauch berg, 8,730 feet high. The surface of the Orange Free State is mostly level or gently undulating, with some ridges of hills and numerous isolated, generally flat-topped, emin ences called gropjes,) rarely more than 500 to 700 feet high, though the whole plateau is from 4,000 to 5,000 feet above sea-level. Im mediately north of the Transvaal lies South ern Rhodesia, separated by the Limpopo River, and extending northward to the Zambesi. An elevated region runs through this territory from the source of the Shashi on the west, in a northeasterly direction to the source of the Manyami River, and thence southeastward to the sources of the Pungwe and Odyi. The watershed between the Zambesi and Limpopo drainage areas runs along this elevated back bone in the central and western portions, and between the Zambesi and Sabi farther east. The most famous landmarks of Rhodesia are the great Victoria Falls and the Matoppo Hills, where the founder of the country, Cecil Rhodes, is buried.