I came across a very interesting article that included some very helpful maps describing the distribution of languages and races within South Africa. It was written by a woman who had the opportunity to live there for awhile. Coming from the United States it is common for people to only know a single language, whereas here she was encountering people speaking at least two languages. When she looked at the distribution of races throughout the country the maps became very helpful in being a visual to what she described. From a very zoomed out perspective it appears that most race groups tend to largely live in the same general area. Once larger cities are zoomed in  it's obvious that people of the race tend to stick even more so in the same area, as their patches are more defined.

In my African Cultures class we talked about the linguistic families within Africa as a whole. This article broke in down even more for me by looking solely at the languages most commonly spoken in South Africa. That was interesting for me, because this is the area of Africa that can be most similar to the United States. After comparing the  map of South Africa below to the map below of languages most commonly spoke in the United States after English we are able to see Africa's languages are more diversified. South Africa has eleven commonly spoken languages whereas the United States citizen's language is most commonly English. Even though the United States has a very ethnic population Africa is still far more diverse when comparing the languages spoken.

The maps also showed some similarities to the United States. When looking at each country as a whole. One is able to observe the major ethnic groups living in each region. For South Africa one notices that the "black Africans" tend to be most concentrated in the eastern portion whereas the "mixed race people" tend to be in the western portion of the country. This is similar to the United States in ways like we have a high concentration of Mexicans in the southern portion, and in the Midwest we have a high concentration of Caucasians. When taking a closer look in on the more populated areas we can see it like she referred to it as a patchwork quilt. In South Africa these people of the same race and same languages tend to really stick close together. This can be compared to the United States in certain ways. For example, when looking at San Francisco one can see areas such as Little Italy and Chinatown. The people living in these areas tend to fit the description. There are also areas that aren't quite so specific though as they have many races living all together in the same section of the city.

By comparing the similarities and differences from this article to these aspects in the United States I feel like puts it more into perspective. We can compare how it relates as well as doesn't relate to what we are used to in our own life, which I think helps build a better understanding of the information.