all-racial elections of May 1993, Nelson Mandella of the African National Conference was elected as President.
2.2.2 Population
The total population of the Republic of South Africa is approximately 43,590,000 with the populations of the top eight cities as shown below. 23% of the total population lives in the top eight cities.
Cape Peninsular (including Cape Town) 2,350,000
Johannesburg 1,920,000
East Rand 1,380,000
Durban 1,140,000
Pretoria 1,080,000
West Rand 870,000
Port Elizabeth 850,000
Bloemfontein 300,000
2.2.3 Gross National Product
The economy decelerated in the latter half of the 1980's as a result of the economic sanctions, the withdrawal of foreign capital and a downturn in the price of gold. Following the abolition of Apartheid in 1991, the sanctions came to be lifted and the underlying trend of the economy turned to one of slight recovery, however, the high level of unemployment still remains a national problem.
The GNP in fiscal 1994 was approximately 487 billion rand, and a large proportion of this is accounted for by the engineering and service sectors.
South Africa is also one of the world's leading countries in terms of reserves and production of natural resources (except oil) such as gold, diamonds, coal, chrome, iron ore, and so forth.
