Reiger Park

Reiger Park is a township situated in Boksburg in the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality, Gauteng.

It was established as Stirtonville after the Second World War when people influxed from rural areas seeking work on the gold mines. In 1963, due to the apartheid government’s policy of separate development, the Black people were moved to Vosloorus, the Indians to Actonville and the Coloured people were left to stay in Stirtonville, then renamed Reiger Park.

The locals have given their own unofficial names to the different areas of Reiger Park, such as Jerusalem (due to the many churches in that area), Excuse Me (due to the houses being close together that neighbours say “bless you” when one sneezes), and Popcorn (a new area developed in the 1990s with homes popping up so fast that they were likened to popcorn).

In 1997, the Popcorn area experienced violent rent boycotts. In 2008, it was one of the sites of violence during the anti-immigrant riots, beating and burning émigrés on streets described as “war zones”. Source : Wikipedia

AREA
3.46 km²
POPULATION
39 345
HOUSEHOLDS
12 348

Katlehong

Katlehong, a township 30 minutes east of Johannesburg, was established in the 1950s. It became a location for migrant workers coming to work in the mines on the Johannesburg Reef.

Today Katlehong is fused with two other townships, Vosloorus and Thokoza, and hence named Kathorus. It consists of a number of informal settlements with a history of involvement in the anti-apartheid struggle in the early 1990s. Much of this struggle was accompanied by intense violence, mostly concentrated in and around the mine hostels; single-sex living quarters in which men from the rural areas were forced to live in abominable conditions. Source: TALK Tourism

In the early 1990s just before 1994 elections, Katlehong was one of the townships that experience political tensions between members of the African National Congress (ANC) and Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP).

Katlehong was established on the site where the Palmietfontein Airport, which was the airport that was temporary serving Johannesburg whilst the new Jan Smuts International Airport was being built, was located. Source: Wikipedia

AREA
55.36 km²
POPULATION
407,294
HOUSEHOLDS
124,841