Seal of Transkei, the Republic of South Africa Sticker

Transkei (/trænˈskeɪ, trɑːn-, -ˈskaɪ/ tran-SKAY, TRAHN-, -⁠SKY, meaning the area beyond [the river] Kei), officially the Republic of Transkei (Xhosa: iRiphabliki yeTranskei), was an unrecognised state in the southeastern region of South Africa from 1976 to 1994. It was, along with Ciskei, a Bantustan for the Xhosa people, and operated as a nominally independent parliamentary democracy. 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.