The Nationalist party government announced its intention to consolidate the total number of separate 'homeland' areas from 113 to 36.

The homelands were officially instituted in the 1950s as a form of apartheid separate development and a way to strip Black South Africans of their South African citizenship. The idea was that the 'homelands' would, from the point of view of the apartheid government at least, be like countries where the Black people could live and vote for their own governments. The reality was that they became impoverished cheap labour pools ruled by chiefs controlled by the apartheid state.

Source:

South African History Online