Orlando East, a working class community on the periphery of Johannesburg in South Africa, has turned 90 years old. Orlando was one of the first municipal locations – called townships under apartheid – established in 1932 for Africans under the 1923 Native Urban Areas Act. It was renamed Orlando East when Orlando West was established in the 1940s.
Several new townships were created, especially in the 1950s, in the same region. They were eventually amalgamated into Soweto, the country’s largest township. Soweto was the primary dormitory township for African people working in Johannesburg, which since its establishment as a mining town in 1886 has developed into the country’s economic hub. Soweto is renowned as the site of the 1976 student uprising that shook apartheid – the country’s system of white minority rule – to its core. As one of the oldest parts of Soweto, Orlando has a longer history.
