Gugulethu or Guguletu is a township 15 km from Cape Town, South Africa. Though much more tranquil than it was under apartheid, Gugulethu is still a troubled area.GeographyThe main route, Steve Biko Drive, runs through the township. The town planners did not give names to any of the roads, all were simply numbered. NY1 stood for "Native Yard 1", Gugulethu at the time not having been named as such and being considered simply as an extension of the adjoining township of Nyanga. There has been strong pressure for the NY terminology to be dropped and for the streets to be renamed. This resulted in the City of Cape Town renaming NY1 as Steve Biko Drive in September 2012. The renaming process continues and the City recently announced that streets will be named after, amongst others, Albert Luthuli, Amy Biehl, Ray Alexander and the "Gugulethu Seven" . Currently all the streets have new names but the NY terminology is still predominant as residents are used to it.HistoryThe name is a contraction of igugu lethu, which is Xhosa for our pride. Gugulethu, along with Nyanga, was established in the 1960s due to the overcrowding of Langa, which was the only black residential area for Cape Town at the time. During the Apartheid era black South Africans were not permitted to live in the city of Cape Town, and many people were removed from areas such as District Six to Gugulethu, Nyanga and Langa. The predominant language in Gugulethu is Xhosa.
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