Its history reveals a rich tapestry of experiences that the state attempted to suppress. Soon after its establishment, Orlando became a mecca of black urban culture and liberation politics. As one of the oldest parts of Soweto, Orlando has a longer history. 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.

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. They were eventually amalgamated into Soweto, the country’s largest township.

Several new townships were created, especially in the 1950s, in the same region. It was renamed Orlando East when Orlando West was established in the 1940s. Orlando was one of the first municipal locations – called townships under apartheid – established in 1932 for Africans under the 1923 Native Urban Areas Act. Orlando East, a working class community on the periphery of Johannesburg in South Africa, has turned 90 years old.

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