Bahamas vs South Africa

Informations

The Bahamas ( (listen)), known officially as the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is a Nation within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies from the Atlantic.

It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the archipelago's inhabitants. The archipelagic state includes over 700 islands, cays, and islets in the Atlantic Ocean, and is situated north of Cuba and Hispaniola Island (Haiti and the Dominican Republic), northwest of the Turks and Caicos Islands, southeast of the US state of Florida, and east of the Florida Keys. The capital is Nassau on the island of New Providence. The Royal Bahamas Defence Force describes The Bahamas' land as encompassing 470,000 km2 (180,000 sq mi) of ocean space. The Bahamas were inhabited by the Lucayans, a branch of the Arawakan-speaking Taíno people, for many centuries. Columbus was the first European to see the islands, making his first landfall in the 'New World' in 1492. Later, the Spanish sent the native Lucayans to captivity on Hispaniola, and the Bahama islands were largely abandoned from 1513 until 1648, when English colonists from Bermuda settled on the island of Eleuthera. The Bahamas became a British crown colony in 1718, when the British clamped down on piracy. Following the American Revolutionary War, the Crown resettled thousands of American Loyalists to The Bahamas; they took their slaves with them and established plantations on land grants. African slaves and their descendants constituted the vast majority of the populace from this period on. The slave trade was abolished by the British in 1807; slavery in The Bahamas was abolished in 1834. Subsequently, The Bahamas became a haven for freed African American slaves. Africans liberated from illegal slave ships were resettled on the islands by the Royal Navy, though some North American slaves and Seminoles escaped to The Bahamas from Florida. Bahamians were even known to recognise the freedom of slaves carried by the ships of other nations which reached The Bahamas. Today Afro-Bahamians make up 90% of the populace of 332,634. The country gained political independence in 1973 led by Sir Lynden O. Pindling, with Elizabeth II as its queen. Concerning gross domestic product per capita, The Bahamas is one of the wealthiest nations in the Americas (following the USA and Canada), with an economy based on tourism and offshore finance.

Source: Wikipedia

Informations

South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. With over 58 million people, it is the world's 24th-most populous nation and covers an area of 1,221,037 kilometres (758,717 mi). South Africa has three designated capital cities: executive Pretoria, judicial Bloemfontein and legislative Cape Town. The largest city is Johannesburg. About 80% of South Africans are of Bantu ancestry, divided among a variety of ethnic groups speaking different African languages. The remaining population consists of Africa's largest communities of European, Asian, Indian, and multiracial ancestry. It is bounded to the south by 2,798 kilometres (1,739 mi) of coastline of Southern Africa stretching along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe; and to the east and northeast by Mozambique and Eswatini (Swaziland); and it surrounds the enclaved country of Lesotho. It is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World or the Eastern Hemisphere, and the most populous country located entirely south of the equator. South Africa is a multiethnic society encompassing a wide variety of cultures, languages, and religions. Its pluralistic makeup is reflected in the constitution's recognition of 11 official languages, the fourth-highest number in the world. Two are of European origin: Afrikaans developed from Dutch and serves as the first language of most coloured and white South Africans; English reflects the legacy of British colonialism, and is commonly used in public and commercial life, though it is fourth-ranked as a spoken first language. The country is one of the few in Africa never to have had a coup d'état, and regular elections have been held for almost a century. However, the vast majority of black South Africans were not enfranchised until 1994. During the 20th century, the black majority sought to claim more rights from the dominant white minority, which played a large role in the country's recent history and politics. The National Party imposed apartheid in 1948, institutionalising previous racial segregation. After a long and sometimes violent struggle by the African National Congress (ANC) and other anti-apartheid activists both inside and outside the country, the repeal of discriminatory laws began in the mid-1980s. Since 1994, all ethnic and linguistic groups have held political representation in the country's liberal democracy, which comprises a parliamentary republic and nine provinces. South Africa is often referred to as the "rainbow nation" to describe the country's multicultural diversity, especially in the wake of apartheid.South Africa is a developing country and ranks 113th on the Human Development Index, the seventh-highest in Africa. It has been classified by the World Bank as a newly industrialised country, with the second-largest nominal GDP in Africa, and the 33rd-largest in the world. The country is a middle power in international affairs; it maintains significant regional influence and is a member of the G20. However, crime, poverty and inequality remain widespread, with about a quarter of the population unemployed and living on less than US$1.25 a day.

Source: Wikipedia