Apartheid (Afrikaans pronunciation: [ɐˈpartɦɛit]; an Afrikaans[1] word meaning "the state of being apart", literally "apart -hood")[2][3] was a system of racial segregation in South Africa enforced through legislation by the National Party (NP) governments, the ruling party from 1948 to 1994, under which the rights, associations, and movements of the majority black inhabitants were curtailed and Afrikaner minority rule was maintained. Apartheid was developed after World War II by the Afrikaner-dominated National Party and Broederbond organisations and was practised also in South West Africa, which was administered by South Africa under a League of Nations mandate (revoked in 1966 via United Nations Resolution 2145),[4] until it gained independence as Namibia in 1990.[5] By extension, the term is nowadays currently used for every kind of segregation, established by the state authority in a country, against the social and civil rights of a certain group of citizens, due to ethnic prejudices.[citation needed]

Racial segregation in South Africa began in colonial times under Dutch rule.[6] Apartheid as an officially structured policy was introduced following the general election of 1948. Legislation classified inhabitants into four racial groups—"black", "white", "coloured", and "Indian", the last two of which were divided into several sub-classifications[7]—and residential areas were segregated. From 1960 to 1983, 3.5 million non-white South Africans were removed from their homes, and forced into segregated neighbourhoods, in one of the largest mass removals in modern history.[8] Non-white political representation was abolished in 1970, and starting in that year black people were deprived of their citizenship, legally becoming citizens of one of ten tribally based self-governing homelands called bantustans, four of which became nominally independent states. The