Afrikaners are a white European ethnic group in South Africa, consisting of white people whose first language was the Dutch-based Afrikaans language. Most Afrikaners are descended from the Dutch, French, and German Boers, and many of them adhered to Calvinist Protestantism. Afrikaner political identity was formed and expressed by the National Party of South Africa, and the common approval of apartheid strengthened the Afrikaner control of the government and society as a whole. As pressures to change the system grew during the 1980s, the unity of the Afrikaners began to collapse, and Afrikaner culture and values were challenged by the end of apartheid and the establishment of a multi-racial democracy in 1994, becoming one of eleven officially recognized South African cultures. In 2017, the Afrikaner world population was around 3,500,000, with 2,710,461 living in South Africa and 92,400 living in neighboring Namibia.