Demarcations of the South African former homelands and Act 9 areas

This shapefile contains the demarcations of two spatial legacies of separate development under the colonial and apartheid rule in South Africa. The first are the former homelands, based first on the 1913 and 1936 Natives Land Act, and formalised by the apartheid government in the 1960s. These were 10 semi-autonomous states: Ciskei, KwaNdebele, Qua Qua, Bophuthatswana, Gazankulu, Kangwane, KwaZulu, Lebowa, Transkei and Venda. The second are the Act 9 areas (also referred to as Act 9 trust land, coloured (communal) reserves, of certain rural areas), which are named after the Rural Areas Act 9 of 1987, though the foundation was laid as early as 1909 with the Mission Stations and Communal Reserves Act 29 of 1909 and later embedded in the 1950 Group Areas Act. The 23 areas are located in the Western Cape (namely, Pniël, Saron, Ebenhaeser, Rietpoort, Friemersheim, Slangrivier, Kranshoek, Suurbraak, Mamre, Haarlem, Zoar and Genadendal), Northern Cape (Mier, Pella, Richtersveld, Steinkopf, Concordia, Komaggas, Leliefontein and Eksteenskuil), Eastern Cape (Enon) and Free State (Thaba Patchoa and Oppermansgronde). This data was used in the research article “A framework for spatially quantifying household-level Water-Energy-Food security: application to South Africa” by Ossentjuk et al. (to be submitted) to assess the difference in WEF security across these areas. It was created as part of a research project on spatial inequality in Water-Energy-Food (WEF) security in South Africa, the implications on public health and the impacts of climate change. For the project website, see: https://sarva.saeon.ac.za/wefh-nexus/. For the overarching collection of datasets, see: https://doi.org/10.15493/SARVA.42092023.