What is "dimbaza"

Dimbaza is a town in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, located in the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality, west of King William's Town on the R63 road. As of 2011, it had a population of 21,783.

It was created during the mid- and late 1960s in the former Ciskei homeland to house Black people who had been removed from "white" areas for living there "illegally". The concrete houses consisted of two or three rooms; sanitation facilities were non-existent. The lucky individuals could obtain employment in King William's Town, paying roughly a quarter of their gross income on transportation.

Between the abject poverty, and active negligence by the South African government, the town became a symbol of apartheid, and the subject of the 1975 documentary Last Grave at Dimbaza.

The town's original name was changed, due to the inability of the Special Branch to pronounce it correctly.