I know it is still an impoverished country but compared to other african countries it seems much more civilized and developed.
But even more than that it seems like it is much more culturally prominent than other african countries. I never hear about Ghana in casual conversation but I feel like I hear about South Africa more regularly. It has had major historical figures, movies have been set there, people want to travel there. It just seems like it is more out there than the rest of Africa.
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> but compared to other african countries it seems much more civilized and developed.
Its Human Development Index is higher than most other African countries, but it’s similar to Botswana, Gabon, Mauritius, the Seychelles, and most of North Africa. HDI is far from a perfect measure of anything, but it roughly corresponds to what we think of as “development”.
Anyway, probably the biggest reason why most of Africa is so poor is because it has essentially been used as a playground for colonial powers for centuries. There was a period in the late 19th and early 20th centuries known as the Scramble for Africa in which various European powers rapidly conquered almost the entire continent and divided it between them. They attempted to extract as much wealth as they could from their African colonies while paying very little attention to the needs of the indigenous populations, who often suffered extensively. The process of decolonization, which mostly happened in the mid 20th century, was generally quite chaotic – borders were drawn arbitrarily, and the colonial powers often left hurriedly without making much effort to ensure a smooth transfer of power.
And just as decolonization was getting underway, the Cold War was also heating up. The main powers in the Cold War generally avoided direct conflict as an all-out war would result in mutual destruction. Instead they stirred up and indirectly participated in numerous conflicts between smaller powers around the world, hoping that their allies would win, increasing their sphere of influence. Africa was a popular theatre for these proxy wars – prominent examples include the Congo Crisis and the Angolan Civil War.
South Africa is a big, heavily populated country surrounded by small and sparsely populated countries, so it’s by far the dominant power in its region and has never had much to fear from external conflicts. During this era the white minority who controlled South Africa were politically unified and political activity among other ethnic groups was brutally suppressed, so there also wasn’t a lot of internal conflict. It was also closely aligned with the US, which shielded it from diplomatic and economic interference (e.g. Western countries strongly opposed boycotts aimed at weakening the regime).
> It seems like it is much more culturally prominent than other african countries
Well, it does have the 5th highest population in Africa, and English is quite widely spoken there which tends to increase the amount of cultural contact with other English-speaking countries.
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