Northern Cape in the context of "List of South African provinces by area"

Xhosa (/ˈkɔːsə/ KAW-sə or /ˈkoʊsə/ KOH-sə, Xhosa: [ᵏǁʰôːsa] ), formerly spelled Xosa and also known by its local name isiXhosa, is a Bantu language, indigenous to Southern Africa and one of the official languages of South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Xhosa is spoken as a first language by approximately 8 million people and as a second language in South Africa, particularly in Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Northern Cape and Gauteng, and also in parts of Zimbabwe and Lesotho. It has perhaps the heaviest functional load of click consonants in a Bantu language (approximately tied with Yeyi), with one count finding that 10% of basic vocabulary items contained a click.

The Province of the Cape of Good Hope (Afrikaans: Provinsie Kaap die Goeie Hoop), commonly referred to as the Cape Province (Afrikaans: Kaapprovinsie) and colloquially as The Cape (Afrikaans: Die Kaap), was a province in the Union of South Africa and subsequently the Republic of South Africa. It encompassed the old Cape Colony, as well as Walvis Bay, and had Cape Town as its capital. In 1994, the Cape Province was divided into the new Eastern Cape, Northern Cape and Western Cape provinces, along with part of the North West.

Khi Solar One (KSO) is a solar power tower solar thermal power plant, located in the Northern Cape Region of South Africa. Khi Solar One is 50 megawatts (MW), and is the first solar tower plant in Africa. It covers an area of 140 hectares (346 acres).

Abengoa claims that Khi Solar One is the first thermal solar tower plant in Africa and the first to achieve 24 hours of operation using only solar energy. This is made possible by reduced electricity demand at night, as the plant's storage system can provide full output for only two hours.

Namaqualand (Khoikhoi: "Nama-kwa" meaning Nama Khoi people's land) is an arid region of Namibia and South Africa, extending along the west coast over 1,000 km (600 mi) and covering a total area of 440,000 km (170,000 sq mi). It is divided by the lower course of the Orange River into two portions – Little Namaqualand to the south and Great Namaqualand to the north.

Little Namaqualand is within the Namakwa District Municipality, forming part of Northern Cape Province, South Africa. It is geographically the largest district in the country, spanning over 26,836 km. A typical municipality is Kamiesberg Local Municipality. The semidesert Succulent Karoo region experiences hot summers, sparse rainfall, and cold winters.

Coloureds (Afrikaans: Kleurlinge) are multiracial people in South Africa, Namibia and to a smaller extent Zimbabwe and Zambia. Their mixed heritage descends from the interracial mixing that occurred between Europeans, Africans and Asians. Interracial mixing in South Africa began in the 17th century in the Dutch Cape Colony where the Dutch men mixed with Khoekhoe women and female slaves from different parts of Africa and Asia, creating mixed-race children. Eventually, interracial mixing occurred throughout South Africa and the rest of Southern Africa with various other European nationals (such as the Portuguese, British, Germans, Irish, French etc.) who mixed with other African tribes leading to more mixed-race children, whose descendants would later be officially classified as 'Coloured' under the Population Registration Act, 1950 during Apartheid.

The majority of Coloureds are found in the Western Cape, but are prevalent throughout the country. According to the 2022 South African census, Coloureds represent 8.15% of people within South Africa, while they make up 42.1% of the population in the Western Cape and 41.6% in the Northern Cape, representing a plurality of the population in these two provinces of South Africa. In the Western Cape, a distinctive Cape Coloured and affiliated Cape Malay culture developed. Genetic studies suggest the group has the highest levels of mixed ancestry in the world.

Cape Coloureds (Afrikaans: Kaapse Kleurlinge) are a South African group of Coloured people who are from the Cape region in South Africa which consists of the Western Cape, Northern Cape and the Eastern Cape. Their ancestry comes from the interracial mixing between the European, the indigenous Khoi and San, the Xhosa plus other Bantu people, indentured labourers imported from the British Raj, slaves imported from the Dutch East Indies, immigrants from the Levant or Yemen (or a combination of all). Eventually, all these ethnic and racial groups intermixed with each other, forming a group of mixed-race people that became known as the "Cape Coloureds".

South African Standard Time (SAST) is the time zone used by all of South Africa as well as Eswatini and Lesotho. The zone is two hours ahead of UTC (UTC+02:00) and is the same as Central Africa Time. Daylight saving time is not observed in either time zone. Solar noon in this time zone occurs at 30° E in SAST, effectively making Pietermaritzburg at the correct solar noon point, with Johannesburg and Pretoria slightly west at 28° E and Durban slightly east at 31° E. Thus, most of South Africa's population experience true solar noon at approximately 12:00 daily.

The western Northern Cape and Western Cape differ, however. Everywhere on land west of 22°30′ E effectively experiences year-round daylight saving time because of its location in true UTC+01:00 but still being in South African Standard Time. Sunrise and sunset are thus relatively late in Cape Town, compared to the rest of the country.

The Cape Provinces of South Africa is a biogeographical area used in the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD). It is part of the WGSRPD region 27 Southern Africa. The area has the code "CPP". It includes the South African provinces of the Eastern Cape, the Northern Cape and the Western Cape, together making up most of the former Cape Province.

The area includes the Cape Floristic Region, the smallest of the six recognised floral kingdoms of the world, an area of extraordinarily high diversity and endemism, home to more than 9,000 vascular plant species, of which 69 percent are endemic.

The Eastern Cape (Afrikaans: Oos-Kaap [ˈuəs.kɑːp]; Xhosa: eMpuma-Kapa) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, and its largest city is Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth). Due to its climate and nineteenth-century towns, it is a common location for tourists. It is also known for having been home to many anti-apartheid activists, including Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko and Chris Hani.

The second largest province in the country (at 168,966 km) after the Northern Cape, it was formed in 1994 out of the Xhosa homelands or bantustans of Transkei and Ciskei, together with the eastern portion of the Cape Province. The central and eastern part of the province is the traditional home of the indigenous Xhosa people. In 1820 this area, which was known as the Xhosa Kingdom, began to be settled by Europeans who originally came from England, Scotland and Ireland. Eastern Cape is the only province in South Africa where the number of Black Africans declined from 86.6% to 85.7% since Apartheid ended in 1994.