"The actual balance of political power.
on the one hand, of geographical conditions,.
both economic and strategic, and, on the other hand,.
of the relative number, virility, equipment.
and organization of the competing peoples.".
Halford Mackinder .
Introduction.
Covering the southern tip of the African continent by 1,227,200 square kilometers and having about 3,000 kilometers of coastlines lies the Republic of South Africa . Just nine years ago Republic of South Africa was ruled by its" white minority group that started settling in the Cape Town more than three hundred years ago and took root in the African continent. "White rule" lasted since early 20th century and was one the world's worst regimes that existed and which had been heavily criticized by the international community. However today, South Africa is one of the most developed countries in the African continent and now seems to be more or less democratic after it received full independence from Britain and started practicing free elections. The modern "face" of Africa was brought not by Africans themselves, but the whites that ruled it. And throughout the 19th and mid - 20th centuries it was under British rule. British Empire invested a lot of capital in its colonies and South Africa was one of those colonies that had great capital flow from the "ruler" British Empire. As Eric Hobsbawm puts it " most of the British foreign investment went to the rapidly developing and generally old white - settler colonies, soon to be recognized as virtually independent "dominion" ( South Africa )- . South Africa was not the only colony of the British Empire, and British Empire was so vast that there was a saying "Sun never sets on the British Empire". In addition Britain possessed other parts of the African continent at the northwest. However, even if South Africa was one of those colonies that Britain possessed, it was very significant.