1. South Africa
percentage/number of white people: 9.2% or around 5.3 million
And finally, South Africa ended up first on our list of African countries with the largest white population in 2018. After Portuguese navigators Bartolomeu Dias and Vasco da Gama “discovered” the south of the continent, the first colony is founded at Cape Town by Dutch East India Company in 1652. By the end of the XVIII century, it became a British colony only to be returned to Dutch a few years later. The conflicts between the British Empire and Boer settlers, the descendants of the Dutch settlers, culminated by the beginning of the XX century in the South African War, when Boers were defeated (in 1902). The second half of the XX century was “colored” with racial segregation and rule of white minority known as apartheid. In 1994, Nelson Mandela, the first black president of South Africa put an end on violence and racial segregation, leading the way in the peaceful transition to a rule of the majority. Today, this is a country with the largest white population on the continent. In addition, the tenth of the South Africa population are whites, even though over the past few years, the country’s white population is shrinking.
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