Cultural Tourism
South Africa is home to diverse cultures, ranging from the Zulus who resisted European conquest to the nomadic San of the Karoo desert. Each culture has evolved its own distinctive art forms, music and traditional rituals, while the descendants of colonial settlers have evolved variations of their European roots. South Africa's history has been one of confrontation, but more recently one of reconciliation. Since 1994, a number of world-class sites have been established to commemorate the country's past and celebrate its new unity, while the number and quality of cultural villages, community and township tours has grown dramatically.
Four of South Africa's eight Unesco World Heritage sites are cultural sites, while one is a mixed cultural/natural site. These are: Robben Island, the Cradle of Humankind, the Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape, the Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape, and the uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park.
Paleo-tourism
South Africa boasts numerous sites of great archaeological significance. The best known of these are the Sterkfontein, Swartkrans and Kromdraai sites that make up the Cradle of Humankind, one of the world's richest concentrations of hominid fossils.
Others include the uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park, host to the largest and most concentrated series of rock art paintings in Africa, and the Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape, site of an ancient and sophisticated African kingdom that long predated European colonisation. All three of the above are Unesco World Heritage sites.