(through their ancestor Gwambe) before they went to conquer parts of Zimbabwe and were nicknamed as Barozwi ("the destroyers"). The Tsonga people themselves still recognize their respective tribal origins and have also embraced the Tsonga national identity, which unites them linguistically and culturally within South Africa. The biggest factor in uniting the various Xitsonga-speaking tribes in South African territory is the role played by Sunduza II of the Mhinga Dynasty in 1961 where he mobilized all the Tsonga chiefs to form a territorial authority that enabled the Tsonga people to retain their own recognition equal to the Venda and Pedi territorial authorities (Mathebula 2002, p. 37). Sunduza II Mhinga, a descendant of Dzavana and the king of the Chopi people Gunyule, began his pursuits to unite the Tsonga clans in the 1950s when the apartheid government attempted to assimilate the Tsonga and Shangaan people into the Venda and Pedi Bantustans. Sunduza II then called a meeting for all the leading Tsonga chiefs in 1957 and made a resolution to unite and resist the impending assimilation. The leadership by Sunduza II resulted in the apartheid government engaging in diplomatic talks which unilaterally granted the Tsonga people recognition to form their own territorial authority. This greatly cemented the unity between the Tsonga and Shangaan people from the formation of the Gazankulu Homeland where Hudson Ntsanwisi (a member of the Van'wanati Maluleke clan) became the first Chief Minister of the Tsonga and Shangaan people. Xitsonga-speaking communities of South Africa after 1890 (through a Xitsonga-related dialect or sub dialect): Vatsonga (Thonga, Tsonga, Xitanga) Amashangana (Ngoni, Ndwandwe) Population In total, there were 7.3 million Tsonga speakers in 2011, divided mainly between South Africa and Mozambique. South Africa was home to 3.3 million Tsonga speakers in the 2011 population census, while Mozambique accounted for 4 million speakers of the language. A small insignificant number of speakers included 15,000 Tsonga speakers in Eswatini and roughly 18,000 speakers in Zimbabwe. In South Africa, Tsonga people were concentrated in the following municipal areas during the 2011 population census: Greater Giyani Local Municipality (248,000 people), Bushbuckridge Local Municipality (320,000 people), Greater Tzaneen Local Municipality (195,000 people), Ba-Phalaborwa Local Municipality (80,000 people), Makhado Local Municipality (170,000 people), Thulamela Local Municipality (220,000 people), City of Tshwane (280,000 people), City of Johannesburg (290,000 people), and Ekurhuleni (260,000 people). In the following municipalities, Tsonga people are present but they are not large enough or