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Soweto

South West Township — Where Two Nobel Laureates Once Lived on the Same Street

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History & Heritage

Soweto — South West Townships

Soweto's origins trace back to 1904, when a bubonic plague outbreak struck the overcrowded inner-city settlement of Brickfields in Johannesburg, home to the Black, Indian and Coloured labourers drawn to the city by the gold rush. Colonial authorities used the outbreak as justification to raze Brickfields and forcibly relocate its residents roughly 25 km southwest, to a site next to the Klipspruit sewage works. That relocation laid the earliest foundations of what would become Soweto.

The area grew steadily through the following decades as apartheid-era policy pushed more Black residents to the urban periphery. In 1963, the Johannesburg City Council ran a public competition to formally name the sprawling collection of townships. Among the popular suggestions was "KwaMpanza," honouring local housing activist James Sofasonke Mpanza — but the council settled instead on an acronym of South West Townships: Soweto.

Soweto became the epicentre of South Africa's liberation struggle on 16 June 1976, when thousands of Black students marched in protest against a policy forcing Afrikaans as the medium of instruction in schools. The police crackdown that followed killed and injured scores of students and ignited a wave of resistance that reverberated across the country. June 16 is now observed nationally as Youth Day in memory of that uprising.

Fourteen years later, in February 1990, Nelson Mandela chose Soweto's FNB Stadium — known as Soccer City — as the site of his first mass public address after 27 years in prison. Two decades after that, in July 2010, the same stadium hosted the closing ceremony of the FIFA World Cup, with Mandela making one of his final major public appearances there. Today Soweto is home to more than a million residents and stands as one of South Africa's most historically significant urban areas.

Key Historical Places

Places of Significance

Vilakazi Street

The only street in the world known to have been home to two Nobel Peace Prize laureates — Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu both lived here in Orlando West, a few hundred metres apart.

Nobel Laureates Mandela Tutu Orlando West

↑ Visit both the Mandela House Museum and walk the length of the street to appreciate the scale of what it represents.

Hector Pieterson Memorial

A memorial and museum near Vilakazi Street commemorating the 1976 Soweto Uprising, named for one of the first students killed by police during the June 16 protests against enforced Afrikaans instruction.

1976 Uprising Youth Day Memorial

Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital

Spanning over 170 acres with more than 3,000 beds, "Bara" is the largest hospital on the African continent. Originally built by the British in 1941 as a military hospital for wounded WWII soldiers, it remains one of the largest single-site hospitals in the world.

1941 Largest in Africa Landmark

Oppenheimer Tower

Built in 1957 from bricks salvaged from homes destroyed during the forced removals in Sophiatown, the tower has 49 steps — one for each Soweto suburb — and stands as a quiet monument to displacement and resilience.

1957 Sophiatown Memorial

Timeline

1904
Bubonic plague outbreak used as pretext to raze Brickfields and forcibly relocate residents to Klipspruit
1930s-1950s
Apartheid-era housing policy expands the townships as Black urbanisation accelerates
1941
Baragwanath military hospital established by the British for wounded WWII soldiers
1957
Oppenheimer Tower built from reclaimed Sophiatown bricks following forced removals
1963
Johannesburg City Council formally names the area Soweto — South West Townships
1976
June 16 Student Uprising against enforced Afrikaans instruction becomes a turning point in the anti-apartheid struggle
1990
Nelson Mandela delivers his first mass public address at FNB Stadium after his release from prison
2010
FNB Stadium hosts the FIFA World Cup closing ceremony — one of Mandela's final major public appearances

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