Coloureds (Afrikaans: Kleurlinge or Bruinmense, lit. 'Brown people') refers to members of multiracial ethnic communities in South Africa who may have ancestry from African, European, and Asian people. The intermixing of different races began in the Cape province of South Africa, with Dutch settlers and African, Malay, and Indian slaves intermixing with the indigenous Khoi tribes of that region. Later various other European nationals also contributed to the growing mixed race people, who would later be officially classified as coloured by the apartheid government in the 1950s .Coloured was a legally defined racial classification during apartheid referring to anyone not white or not of the black Bantu tribes.This distinction between the brown skinned and black skinned people began during colonial times , as the colonists noticed the stark differences between the indigenous brown people and the migrant black settlers from central Africa. Among the coloured population , approximately +-million are direct descendants of the Khoi or San people. These first nation coloureds are presently reclaiming their rightful identity as indigenous people.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. Mitochondrial DNA studies have demonstrated that many maternal lines of the Cape Coloured population are descended from [[Khoi and San women. In other parts of Southern Africa, people classified as Coloured were usually the descendants of individuals from two distinct ethnicities.
Coloureds are mostly found in the western part of South Africa. In Cape Town, they form 43.2% of the total population, according to the South African National Census of 2011.: 11, 57 The apartheid-era Population Registration Act, 1950 and subsequent amendments, codified the Coloured identity and defined its subgroups, including Cape Coloureds and Malays. Indian South Africans were initially classified under the act as a subgroup of Coloured. As a consequence of Apartheid policies and despite the abolition of the Population Registration Act in 1991, Coloureds are regarded as one of four race groups in South Africa. These groups (blacks, whites, Coloureds and Indians) still tend to have strong racial identities and to classify themselves and others as members of these race groups. The classification continues to persist in government policy, to an extent, as a result of attempts at redress such as Black Economic Empowerment and Employment Equity.
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