Android - Emulator in landscape mode, screen does not rotate

It is a bug with the 2.3 and 4.4 emulators.

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=13189 [v2.3] https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=61671 [v4.4]

In my case it was solved by disabling the "Hardware keyboard present" checkbox in the "Edit Android Virtual Device (AVD)" window.

Another answer here:

in my case the problem was simply that the auto-rotate setting in the android emulator settings (accessible pulling down the notification bar) was disabled, my bad.

I spent more time then I'd like to admit scratching my head why my app was rotating fine on my device but not in the emulator... in the emulator pull the drop-down OS menu and make sure "auto-rotate" is enabled.