Cape Flats 10

The Cape Flats (Die Kaapse Vlakte in Afrikaans) is an expansive, low-lying, flat Afrikaans-speaking area situated to the southeast of the central business district of Cape Town. From the 1950s the area became home to people the apartheid government designated as non-White and has been described by some as 'Apartheid's dumping ground'. Race-based legislation such as the Group Areas Act and pass laws either forced non-white people out of more central urban areas designated for white people and into government-built townships in the Flats or made living in the area illegal, forcing many people designated as Black into informal settlements elsewhere in the Flats. Since then the Flats have been home to much of the population of Greater Cape Town. This area includes the neighbourhoods of Mitchell's Plain, Athlone, Elsie's River, Hanover Park, Bishop Lavis, Manenberg, Strandfontein, Gugulethu, Nyanga, Langa, and Khayelitsha.