Orkney, North West
Encyclopedia
This article is about the mining town in South Africa. For other places with the same name, see Orkney (disambiguation)
Orkney (disambiguation)
Orkney may refer to:Scotland*Orkney, an archipelago in Scotland, also known as the Orkney Islands**Mainland, Orkney, the largest island in the Orkney archipelago...

.


Orkney is a gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

 mining town with 157,324 inhabitants situated in the Klerksdorp district
District
Districts are a type of administrative division, in some countries managed by a local government. They vary greatly in size, spanning entire regions or counties, several municipalities, or subdivisions of municipalities.-Austria:...

 of the North West Province, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

.

It lies on the banks of the Vaal River approximately 180 km from Johannesburg near the N12 (national road from Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...

 to Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...

).

History

The town was named after Orkney Isles off the north coast of Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, the birthplace of Simon Fraser
Simon Fraser
Simon Fraser may refer to:Universities:* Simon Fraser University, a university named for the explorer in British Columbia* Simon Fraser Clan, the athletic program of Simon Fraser UniversityLords Lovat:...

, one of the gold mining pioneers of the 1880s. The town was proclaimed in 1940 on the farm Witkoppen, where Fraser had first started gold mining.

The town was laid out by another Scot by the name of Maconachie (full name unknown). His naming of the streets was interesting: he used the names of poets and authors from the British Isles. This was unusual for a mining town in the heart of "Afrikanerdom". The rule was broken as Afrikaner nationalism grew dominant in the 1960s, and some of the UK literary names were replaced.

Sports

The Oppenheimer Stadium
Oppenheimer Stadium
Oppenheimer Stadium is a football stadium in Orkney, South Africa. It currently has a capacity of 23,000, but that will be increased to 40,000 for the 2010 Football World Cup....

, a large football (soccer)
Football (soccer)
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...

 stadium in Orkney, will be increased in size for the 2010 Football World Cup, although it will not be used in the World Cup. The Orkney Stadium Disaster
Orkney Stadium Disaster
The Orkney Stadium Disaster at the Oppenheimer Stadium in the city of Orkney, North West Province, South Africa was the second worst sporting incident in South African history, with 42 deaths....

, when 42 fans died at the stadium in 1991, was the second worst sporting disaster in South Africa.

In the media

Orkney enjoyed fame in the late 1980s and early 1990s as the setting for a popular Afrikaans television
Television in South Africa
Television in South Africa was first introduced in 1976. Despite being the most economically advanced country in Africa, South Africa was relatively late in introducing television broadcasting to its population.- Opposition to introduction :...

 sitcom called Orkney Snork Nie
Orkney Snork Nie
Orkney Snork Nie was a popular Afrikaans sitcom, originally broadcast by the SABC in South Africa between 1989 and 1992. The name translates directly into Orkney Doesn't Snore, but the message being conveyed in Afrikaans is that the town isn't sleepy, there's always something happening...

. The word "snork" means "snore": so the joke in the title means "Orkney doesn't snore". Even further back the Afrikaans jab at the sleepy town was "Ook nie dorp nie; ook nie plaas nie". In this the pun is on the "ook nie" ('also not' or 'neither') sounding like "Orkney"; and the full meaning being "neither town nor farm".

The notion of "sleepy" is misleading. Some of the deepest and richest gold mines have been worked in the area for decades. But the social life for the youth was better in Klerksdorp.
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