South Africa will hold its third all-race general elections on April 14 since the nation's abolishment of apartheid policies.

Following are key facts about South Africa.

Official name: Republic of South Africa.

Population: 44.5 million

Ethnic makeup: black 75.2 percent, white 13.6 percent, Colored 8.6 percent and Indian 2.6 percent.

Area: total 1,219,912 sq. km land, includes Prince Edward Islands (Marion Island and Prince Edward Island).

Location: Southern Africa, at the southern tip of the Africa continent, bordering Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland and Zimbabwe. It completely surrounds Lesotho and almostcompletely surrounds Swaziland.

Capital: Pretoria, Cape Town is the legislative center and Bloemfontein the judicial center, other major cities include Johannesburg, Durban and Port Elizabeth.

Languages: 11 official languages, including Afrikaans, English,Ndebele, Pedi, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa and Zulu.

Religions: Christian 68 percent (includes most whites and Coloreds, about 60 percent of blacks and about 40 percent of Indians), Muslim 2 percent, Hindu 1.5 percent (60 percent of Indians), indigenous beliefs and animist 28.5 percent.

Brief history: After the British seized the Cape of Good Hope area in 1806, many of the Dutch settlers (the Boers) trekked northto found their own republics. The discovery of diamonds (1867) andgold (1886) spurred wealth and immigration and intensified the subjugation of the native inhabitants. The Boers resisted British encroachments, but were defeated in the Boer War (1899-1902). The resulting Union of South Africa operated under a policy of apartheid - the separate development of the races. The 1990s brought an end to apartheid politically and ushered in black majority rule. The country's first nonracial elections were held on April 26-29, 1994, resulting in the installation of Nelson Mandela as president on May 10, 1994.

Political system: South Africa became a republic in 1961 following an October 1960 referendum. It has nine provinces, whichare Eastern Cape, Free State, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, North-West, Northern Cape and Western Cape.

The country is a constitutional state operating with three branch of government, executive, legislative and judicial. The president is both the chief of state and head of government, elected by the National Assembly for a five-year term, and the president appoints the cabinet.

South African legislative branch has bicameral Parliament consisting of the National Assembly (400 seats; members elected bypopular vote under a system of proportional representation to serve five-year terms) and the National Council of Provinces (90 seats, 10 members elected by each of the nine provincial legislatures for five-year terms; has special powers to protect regional interests, including the safeguarding of cultural and linguistic traditions among ethnic minorities)

The country bases its legal system on Roman-Dutch law and English common law. Its judicial branch is made up of Constitutional Court, Supreme Court of Appeals, High Courts and Magistrate Courts. Constitutional Court interprets and decides constitutional issues; Supreme Court of Appeal is the highest court for interpreting and deciding non-constitutional matters.

Economy: South Africa is a middle-income, emerging market with abundant supply of natural resources, well-developed financial, legal, communications, energy, and transport sectors. Its stock exchange ranks among the 10 largest in the world, and it has a modern infrastructure supporting an efficient distribution of goods to major urban centers throughout the region. However, growth has not been strong enough to lower South Africa's high unemployment rate; and daunting economic problems remain from the apartheid era, especially poverty and lack of economic empowermentamong the disadvantaged groups. High crime and HIV/AIDS infection rates also deter investment. South African economic policy is fiscally conservative, but pragmatic, focusing on targeting inflation and liberalizing trade as means to increase job growth and household income.

The country has a labor force of 17 million, with 37 percent ofthem unemployed (2001), and an inflation rate of 9.9 percent in 2002, about 50 percent of the population live under poverty line.

Gross domestic product (GDP): 209 billion US dollars estimated in 2004, with a growth rate of about 3 percent.

Health: South Africa is one of the most HIV/AIDS affected countries in the world, with about 5 million to 6 million people living with HIV/AIDS. Overall, 12 percent to 13 percent of the population is infected and by 2005 this rate could reach 15 percent. About 2,300 new infections occur each day or over 850,000annually. Approximately 40 percent of adult deaths and 25 percent of all deaths in 2000 were due to AIDS. Without effective prevention and treatment 5 to 7 million cumulative AIDS deaths areanticipated by 2010 (with 1.5 million deaths in 2010 alone), and there will be over 1 million sick with AIDS. Recent studies predict the epidemic could cost South Africa as much as 17 percentin GDP growth by 2010. The extraction industries, education and health are among the sectors that will be severely affected.

Armed Forces: South African National Defense Force (including Army, Navy, Air Force, and Medical Services), South African PoliceService. The country spent 1.746 billion US dollars on its armed forces in Fiscal Year 2002-2003, about 1.7 percent of its GDP.

Source: Xinhua