The Afrikaner Volkstaat (commonly just Volkstaat, which is Afrikaans for "People's State") is a confederate division of the Southern African Confederacy structured as a representative democracy, on the western coast of Southern Africa. The state consists of the entirety of the former South African province of the Northern Cape. The end of minority apartheid rule in South Africa in 1994 left some Afrikaners disillusioned and marginalized by the political changes, and resulted in a proposal for an autonomous nation for the Afrikaners in 1995. In 2012, after much controversy, the Volkstaat was granted confederate division status along with several other areas in what used to be the Republic of South Africa. The capital of the Volkstaat is located in Kimberley.