Following are some key facts about South Africa:

Official name: Republic of South Africa.

Population: 46.6 million

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

Area: 1,219,912 sq. km.

Location: Southern Africa, at the southern tip of the Africa

continent. It borders Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland and Zimbabwe on the north, and the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean on the east, west and south.

Capital: South Africa is the only country in the world with three capitals, with Pretoria as its administrative capital, Cape Town as its 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 north to found their own republics. The discovery of diamonds (1867) and gold (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 -- 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 branches 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.

Economy: South Africa has the biggest economy in Africa, with estimated gross domestic product of 1.32 trillion rand (about 209 billion U.S. dollars) in the 2004 fiscal year, with a growth rate of about 3 percent.

It 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.

South Africa's economic policy is fiscally conservative, but pragmatic, focusing on targeting inflation and liberalizing trade as means to increase job growth and household income.

South Africa is the world's biggest exporter of gold and platinum, but manufacturing is the largest sector.

Relations with China: the two countries established diplomatic ties in 1998 and the friendly relations and cooperation between them have grown steadily since then. South Africa is now China's No. 1 trading partner in Africa, while China is among South Africa's top 10 trading partners in the world. In 2005, bilateral trade reached 7.27 billion U.S. dollars, a 23-percent increase over the previous year.