Soweto - Johannesburg South Africa

Soweto lies to the south west of Johannesburg and is by far the largest black community in South Africa. Soweto is an acronym for southwest’s townships. The development of Soweto is intertwined with the discovery of gold in Johannesburg. It is a city formed of twenty five separate communities or townships covering forty square miles. It is populated by approximately four million people.

Soweto - Johannesburg South Africa Famous or notorious, Soweto has its roots from the times of Apartheid. Originally there were only temporary living quarters for the mine workers, before Soweto was declared a ghetto for the black population of Johannesburg by the infamous "Urban Areas Act" in 1923. Although the government had a housing program to build hundreds of thousands of plain two-room houses here, the illegal squatter camps kept on growing and spreading.

Still Soweto is by no means only an accumulation of tin shacks. There are also better suburbs and a number of more or less functioning social institutions like schools and hospitals. The main impression though is that of great crowding and poverty. Violence and crime are a result, which the police can hardly handle.

Kids of Soweto If you want to have a closer look at these problems, the book "Born in Soweto" by Heidi Holland is highly recommended. It describes everyday life in the black ghettos and the various techniques for survival in the daily confrontation with violence and crime.

Soweto taxi rank It was in Soweto that much of the struggle against apartheid was fought. On 16 June 1976 the riots, which spread through the country, started here with black children protesting against Afrikaans being used as a joint instruction medium with English in African schools. As the demonstration increased in size, the police threw a teargas canister into the crowd. This led to a wave of panic, stone-throwing and shooting into the crowd. A newspaper photographer, Sam Nzima, captured the moment when a fatally wounded 13 year old, Hector Petersen, was carried out of the crowd. This photograph came to symbolise the tragedy of that day and each year the 16 June is remembered with a national holiday called Youth Day.

Accommodation in Soweto

Soweto tours and accommodation
We show tourists South African life, we go into Townships, we do homestays. You've got the Hilton and all these luxury hotels, the Sheratons, in your country as well, so why do you want to come to South Africa and stay there? Rather, stay and meet the people and their culture and stay in a township or a homestay Enquire
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Amakhulu Central Reservations
Merl offers a very friendly and professional service to book accommodation in South Africa. She specializes in the interesting tourist experiences and what she knows about where to stay in Soweto is about the best contact you could ask for.
Accommodation in Soweto
This is the best website I have so far come across to book accommodation in South Africa through the internet. You deal directly with the accommodation establishment owner and it works perfectly.
The View Guesthouse
in Thembisa Township in Soweto offers super service and accommodations with a location convenient to Johannesburg Airport. They do traditional cooking like Ting, a beef and chicken stew, Mogodu, ox tripe, sweet and sour carrots, Greek salad, beet root salad and raisin bread pudding.