Koreans in South Africa

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Koreans in South Africa form the largest Korean diaspora community on the African continent and the 29th-largest in the world, ahead of Koreans in Spain and behind Koreans in Italy.South Africa had considered importing labourers from Korea as early as 1903 in order to control rising mining wages, but eventually decided on Chinese workers instead.

The Immigration Act of 1913 classified all Asians as "prohibited immigrants", thus preventing them from settling in the country or conducting commercial activities there.In 1930, when then-Minister of the Interior D.

F. Malan made the decision to exclude Japanese from the "prohibited immigrants" category as defined by the 1913 Act, Koreans remained prohibited immigrants, though Jan Smuts angrily protested that the exemption represented a precedent for opening the door to Koreans and Chinese as well.

In fact, it came to pass as Smuts predicted: Koreans were removed from the "prohibited immigrants" category in the 1960s.