# South Africa

Pronunciation: say "sowth-AF-ri-kuh" /ˌsaʊθ ˈæf.ɹɪ.kə/

## Proper noun

1. A country in Southern Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa, with capital functions shared between Pretoria, Cape Town, and Bloemfontein.
   - Simple: A country at the southern tip of Africa, with three capital cities.
   - _South Africa exports gold, platinum, and a range of other minerals._
   - _The rugby team brought South Africa together during the 1995 World Cup._
2. The geographic region at the southern end of the African continent, taken as a whole area rather than the single modern country sharing the name. *(nonstandard)*
   - Simple: The whole southern part of Africa, not just one country.
   - _Missionaries journeyed through South Africa, mapping rivers from the Cape to the Zambezi._
   - _Nineteenth-century explorers wrote at length about the deserts and grasslands of South Africa._

## Origin

The name derives from Union of South Africa, the country's former official name, which referred to its origin from the unification of four formerly separate British colonies.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/south-africa (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).