South Africa

South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa, is the southernmost sovereign state in Africa. It is bounded on the south by 2,798 kilometers of coastline of Southern Africa stretching along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans, on the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, and on the east by Mozambique and Swaziland, and surrounding the kingdom of Lesotho. South Africa is the 25th-largest country in the world by land area, and with close to 53 million people, is the world's 24th-most populous nation. It is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World or the Eastern Hemisphere.

South Africa is a multiethnic society encompassing a wide variety of cultures, languages, and religions. Its pluralistic makeup is reflected in the constitution's recognition of 11 official languages, which is among the highest number of any country in the world. Two of these languages are of European origin: Afrikaans developed from Dutch and serves as the first language of most white and coloured South Africans; English reflects the legacy of British colonialism, and is commonly used in public and commercial life, though it is fourth-ranked as a spoken first language.

The Krugerrand (Afrikaans pronunciation: [ˈkryxərˌrɐnt]; English /ˈkruːɡəˌrænd/ or /ˈkruːɡəˌrɑːnd/) is a South African gold coin, first minted in 1967 to help market South African gold and produced by the South African Mint. By 1980 the Krugerrand accounted for 90% of the global gold coin market. The name itself is a compound of "Kruger" (the man depicted on the obverse) and "rand", the South African unit of currency. During the 1970s and 1980s some Western countries forbade import of the Krugerrand because of its association with the apartheid government of South Africa.

Production levels of Krugerrands have significantly varied during the last 50 years. From 1967–1969, around 40,000 coins were minted each year. In 1970, the amount rose to over 200,000 coins. Over one million coins were produced in 1974 and in 1978 a total of six million Krugerrands were produced. Following the end of apartheid the production dropped to 23,277 coins in 1998 and since then levels have increased again, albeit not reaching pre-international sanction levels. (Source: Wikipedia)