South Africa is the sixth African country with the largest population, counting approximately 60.5 million individuals as of 2021. In 2023, the largest city in South Africa was Cape Town. The capital of Western Cape counted 3.4 million inhabitants, whereas South Africa's second largest city was Durban (eThekwini Municipality), with 3.1 million inhabitants. Note that when observing the number of inhabitants by municipality, Johannesburg is counted as largest city/municipality of South Africa.

From four provinces to nine provinces

Before Nelson Mandela became president in 1994, the country had four provinces, Cape of Good Hope, Natal, Orange Free State, and Transvaal and 10 “homelands” (also called Bantustans). The four larger regions were for the white population while the homelands for its black population. This system was dismantled following the new constitution of South Africa in 1996 and reorganized into nine provinces. Currently, Gauteng is the most populated province with around 15.9 million people residing there, followed by KwaZulu-Natal with 11.68 million inhabiting the province. As of 2022, Black African individuals were almost 81 percent of the total population in the country, while colored citizens followed amounting to around 5.34 million.

A diverse population

Although the majority of South Africans are identified as Black, the country’s population is far from homogenous, with different ethnic groups usually residing in the different “homelands”. This can be recognizable through the various languages used to communicate between the household members and externally. IsiZulu was the most common language of the nation with around a quarter of the population using it in- and outside of households. IsiXhosa and Afrikaans ranked second and third with roughly 15 percent and 12 percent, respectively.

According to the 2021 Census, London was the most ethnically diverse region in England and Wales – 63.2% of residents identified with an ethnic minority group.

As of 2024, South Africa's population increased, counting approximately 63 million inhabitants. Of these, roughly 27.5 million were aged 0-24, while 654,000 people were 80 years or older. Gauteng and Cape Town are the most populated South Africa’s yearly population growth has been fluctuating since 2013, with the growth rate dropping below the world average in 2024. The majority of people lived in the borders of Gauteng, the smallest of the nine provinces in terms of land area. The number of people residing there amounted to 16.6 million in 2023. Although the Western Cape was the third-largest province, the city of Cape Town had the highest number of inhabitants in the country, at 3.4 million. An underemployed younger population South Africa has a large population under 14, who will be looking for job opportunities in the future. However, the country's labor market has had difficulty integrating these youngsters. Specifically, as of the fourth quarter of 2024, the unemployment rate reached close to 60 percent and 384 percent among people aged 15-24 and 25–34 years, respectively. In the same period, some 27 percent of the individuals between 15 and 24 years were economically active, while the labor force participation rate was higher among people aged 25 to 34, at 74.3 percent.

This dataset is a collation of articles written by different authors on the history of South Africa during the apartheid regime (1948 to 1994). Apartheid in South Africa was the racial segregation under the all-white government of South Africa which dictated that non-white South Africans (a majority of the population) were required to live in separate areas from whites and use separate public facilities and contact between the two groups would be limited. The different racial group were physically separated according to their location, public facilities and social life.

In 2011, 87.2 percent of the total population of the United Kingdom were white British. A positive net migration in recent years combined with the resultant international relationships following the wide-reaching former British Empire has contributed to an increasingly diverse population.

Varied ethnic backgrounds

Black British citizens, with African and/or African-Caribbean ancestry, are the largest ethnic minority population, at three percent of the total population. Indian Britons are one of the largest overseas communities of the Indian diaspora and make up 2.3 percent of the total UK population. Pakistani British citizens, who make up almost two percent of the UK population, have one of the highest levels of home ownership in Britain.

Racism in the United Kingdom

Though it has decreased in comparison to the previous century, the UK has seen an increase in racial prejudice during the first decade and a half of this century. Racism and discrimination continues to be part of daily life for Britain’s ethnic minorities, especially in terms of work, housing, and health issues. Moreover, the number of hate crimes motivated by race reported since 2012 has increased, and in 2017/18, there were 3,368 recorded offenses of racially or religiously aggravated assault with injury, almost a thousand more than in 2013/14.

Lynching in the United States is estimated to have claimed over 4.7 thousand lives between 1882 and 1968, and just under 3.5 thousand of these victims were black. Today, lynching is more commonly associated with racial oppression, particularly in the south, however, in early years, victims were more commonly white (specifically Mexican), and lynchings were more frequent in western territories and along the southern border. It was only after Reconstruction's end where the lynching of black people became more prevalent, and was arguably the most violent tool of oppression used by white supremacists. Nationwide, the share of the population who was black fluctuated between 10 and 13 percent in the years shown here, however the share of lynching victims who were black was almost 73 percent. North-south divide Of the 4.7 thousand victims of lynching between 1882 and 1968, over 3.5 thousand of these were killed in former-Confederate states. Of the fourteen states where the highest number of lynching victims were killed, eleven were former-Confederate states, and all saw the deaths of at least one hundred people due to lynching. Mississippi was the state where most people were lynched in these years, with an estimated 581 victims, 93 percent of whom were black. Georgia saw the second most lynchings, with 531 in total, and the share of black victims was also 93 percent. Compared to the nationwide average of 73 percent, the share of black victims in former-Confederate states was 86 percent. Texas was the only former-Confederate state where this share (71 percent) was below the national average, due to the large number of Mexicans who were lynched there. Outside of the south Of the non-Confederate state with the highest number of lynching victims, most either bordered the former-Confederate states, or were to the west. Generally speaking, the share of white victims in these states was often higher than in the south, meaning that the majority took place in the earlier years represented here; something often attributed to the lack of an established judiciary system in rural regions, and the demand for a speedy resolution. However, there are many reports of black people being lynched in the former border states in the early-20th century, as they made their way northward during the Great Migration. Between 1882 and 1968, lynchings were rare in the Northeast, although Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island were the only states** without any recorded lynchings in these years.