Gazankulu

Gazankulu was a Bantustan in South Africa, intended by the apartheid government to be a semi-independent homeland for the Tsonga people. It was located in both the Northern Transvaal, now Limpopo province and Eastern Transvaal, now Mpumalanga province.

==History== Gazankulu received self-rule from the central government in 1969, with its capital at Giyani. Gazankulu homeland officially starts at Elim Hospital, near Makhado, from Elim it then heads east towards the Levubu river valley, the villages of Valdezia and Bungeni being the two largest Tsonga settlements in the Levubu river valley, with a combined population of more than 50 000 people, according to the mid-2015 population statistics and stretched down up to the banks of the Sabie River near Skukuza in Hazyview in Mpumalanga. Total length of Gazankulu, from Elim Hospital to Hazyview, was 317 km long, which is a distance equivalent of travelling from Pretoria to Harrismith. The homeland consisted of the 'Mainland Gazankulu' which were Elim, Giyani and Malamulele, with 3 large exclaves, which were Bushbuckridge, Tzaneen and Phalaborwa.