Bantustan

Bantustan refers to any of the territories designated as tribal "homelands" for black South Africans (and Namibians) during the apartheid era. The term "bantustan" was first used in the late 1940s and was coined from Bantu (meaning "people" in the Bantu languages) and -stan (meaning "land of" in the Persian language). It was based on Hindustan, a term used to refer to Hindu-inhabited India. It later became a disparaging term used by critics of the apartheid-era government's "homelands".

Post-1994

With the demise of the apartheid regime in South Africa and the end of exclusive white rule, the Bantustans were dismantled and their territory reincorporated into the Republic of South Africa. The drive to achieve this was spearheaded by the African National Congress as a central element of its programme of reform. Reincorporation was mostly achieved peacefully, although there was some resistance from the local elites, who stood to lose out on the opportunities for corruption provided by the homelands. The dismantling of the homelands of Bophuthatswana and Ciskei was particularly difficult, with South African security forces having to intervene in the latter in March 1994 to defuse a political crisis.

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From 1994, most parts of the country were constitutionally redivided into new provincial governments.

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