Sample Factbook Format, Example

After you are done, it should look something like this:

Formal National Name: Union of South Africa, Unie van Suid-Afrika

Common National Name: South Africa, Suid-Afrika

Head of State: King George VI
-Governor-General: Nicolaas Jacobus de Wet

Prime Minister: Jan Christiaan Smuts

General Government Type: Constitutional Monarchy

Flag:

Currency: South African Pound (£)

Motto: Ex Unitate Vires (Latin: From Unity, Strength)

Official Language(s): English, Afrikaans

National Anthem: The Call of South Africa, Die Stem van Suid-Afrika

Capitals:

Cape Town (legislative)
Pretoria (administrative)
Bloemfontein (judicial)

Other major cities:

East London
Port Elizabeth
Pietersburg
Durban
Queenstown

Brief History/Info:

The Union of South Africa came into being on 31 May 1910, comprising four states representing the British and Boer populations of South Africa following the end of the Second Boer War in 1902. The two British colonies, the Cape Colony and Natal Colony, were combined with the two defeated Boer states, the South African Republic and Orange Free State, known thereafter as the Cape Province, Natal, Transvaal and the Orange Free State, respectively.

Unlike Canada and Australia, the Union was a unitary state, rather than a federation, with each colony's parliaments being abolished and replaced with provincial councils. A bicameral parliament was created, consisting of a House of Assembly and Senate, and its members were elected mostly by the country's white minority.

The new Union had no place for Blacks, despite their constituting over 65 percent of the population. The Act of Union denied them voting-rights in the Transvaal and Orange Free State areas, and in Cape Province Blacks gained the vote only if they met a property-ownership qualification. Blacks saw the failure to grant the franchise, coming on the heels of British wartime propaganda promoting freedom from "Boer slavery", as a blatant betrayal. Before long the Union passed a barrage of oppressive legislation, making it illegal for black workers to strike, reserving skilled jobs for whites, barring blacks from military service, and instituting restrictive pass laws. In 1913 parliament enacted the Natives Land Act, setting aside eight percent of South Africa's land for black occupancy. Whites, who made up only 20 percent of the population, held 90 percent of the land. Black Africans could not buy or rent land or even work as sharecroppers outside their designated area. The authorities evicted thousands of squatters from farms and forced them into increasingly overcrowded and impoverished reserves, or into the cities. Those who remained sank to the status of landless labourers.