The Transkei (meaning the area beyond Kei), officially the Republic of Transkei (Xhosa: iRiphabliki yeTranskei), was a Bantustan—an area set aside for members of a specific ethnicity—and nominal parliamentary democracy in the southeastern region of South Africa. Its capital was Umtata (renamed Mthatha in 2004).
Transkei represented a significant precedent and historic turning point in South Africa's policy of apartheid and "separate development"; it was the first of four territories to be declared independent of South Africa. Throughout its existence, it remained an internationally unrecognised, diplomatically isolated, politically unstable de facto one-party state, which at one point broke relations with South Africa, the only country that acknowledged it as a legal entity. In 1994, it was reintegrated into its larger neighbour and became part of the Eastern Cape province.
Read more about Transkei: Government and Politics, Geography and Demographics, Security Forces, Notable Persons