Wentworth forms part of the South Durban Basin, Initiated in 1938 by British colonialists, the area's original purpose was to serve as an army base.

Due to the 1950 Group Areas Act Apartheid-era policy, the region was split into districts depending on ethnic background.

This bushland was the site of many informal settlements and tin shanties, but they were soon demolished when the area's two largest oil refineries, Engen and SAPREF, moved in 1952 and 1963, respectively.

Common street foods include samosas, veda and "bunnies", with roots in the Indian community, and biryani is also popular.

Currently, the Wentworth area votes primarily for the Democratic Alliance (DA), the party that is in direct opposition with the African National Congress (ANC).

The South African Police Service has a significant presence in the area, with their offices and local cells located in Austerville Drive.

In the 1980s in particular, gang violence in Wentworth was supposedly so bad that "people were afraid to walk the streets at night...it was like a war zone".

Currently, there are approximately 350 businesses in the Wentworth area, the major ones being the SAPREF and Engen oil refineries, and the Mondi and Sappi paper mills.

Under the Group Areas Act, Blacks, Coloured and Indians were placed in environmentally and aesthetically less pleasing areas, closer to centres of heavy industry, which ultimately led to those communities being exposed to more environmental hazards resulting in "a historically tense relationship between residents, big businesses, and environmentalists"[4] that still continues.