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Cape Town
| |
|---|---|
 Logo | |
| Nicknames: Mother City, Tavern of the Seas (archaic) | |
| Motto: Spes Bona (Latin for "Good Hope") | |
  Cape Town  Cape Town  Cape Town | |
| Coordinates: 33°55′31″S 18°25′26″E / 33.92528°S 18.42389°E | |
| Country |  South Africa |
| Province |  Western Cape |
| Municipality | City of Cape Town |
| Founded | 6 April 1652 |
| Municipal government | 1839 |
| Government | |
| • Type | Metropolitan municipality |
| • Mayor | Geordin Hill-Lewis (DA) |
| • Deputy Mayor | Eddie Andrews (DA) |
| Area | |
| • Capital city (legislative branch) | 2,461 km2 (950 sq mi) |
| Highest elevation | 1,590.4 m (5,217.8 ft) |
| Lowest elevation | 0 m (0 ft) |
| Population | |
| • Rank | 13th in Africa 2nd in South Africa |
| • Urban (2011) | 433,688 |
| • Urban density | 1,083.47/km2 (2,806.2/sq mi) |
| • Metro (2022) | 4,770,313 |
| • Metro density | 1,529.68/km2 (3,961.9/sq mi) |
| Demonym | Capetonian |
| Racial makeup (2022)[5] | |
| • Black | 45.7% |
| • Coloured | 35.1% |
| • White | 16.2% |
| • Indian/Asian | 1.6% |
| First languages (2011) | |
| • Afrikaans | 34.9% |
| • Xhosa | 29.2% |
| • English | 27.8% |
| Time zone | UTC+2 (SAST) |
| Postal codes (street) | 7400–8099 |
| PO box | 7000 |
| GMP (2020) | US$121 billion[7] |
| GMP per capita (2011) | US$19,656[8] |
| Website | capetown.gov.za |
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Cape Town[a] is the legislative capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa.[11] It is the country's second-largest city, after Johannesburg, and the largest in the Western Cape.[12] The city is part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality.
The city is known for its harbour, its natural setting in the Cape Floristic Region, and for landmarks such as Table Mountain and Cape Point. In 2014, Cape Town was named the best place in the world to visit by The New York Times,[13] and was similarly ranked number one by The Daily Telegraph in both 2016 and 2023.[14][15]
Located on the shore of Table Bay, the City Bowl area of Cape Town is the oldest urban area in the Western Cape, with a significant cultural heritage. It was founded by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) as a supply station for Dutch ships sailing to East Africa, India, and the Far East. Jan van Riebeeck's arrival on 6 April 1652 established the VOC Cape Colony, the first permanent European settlement in South Africa. Cape Town outgrew its original purpose as the first European outpost at the Castle of Good Hope, becoming the economic and cultural hub of the Cape Colony. Until the Witwatersrand Gold Rush and the development of Johannesburg, Cape Town was the largest city in southern Africa.
The metropolitan area has a long coastline on the Atlantic Ocean, which includes False Bay, and extends to the Hottentots Holland mountains to the east. The Table Mountain National Park is within the city boundaries and there are several other nature reserves and marine-protected areas within, and adjacent to, the city, protecting the diverse terrestrial and marine natural environment.
History
Early period
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The earliest known remnants of human occupation in the region were found at Peers Cave in Fish Hoek and have been dated to between 15,000 and 12,000 years old.[16]
Little is known of the history of the region's first residents, since there is no written history from the area before it was first mentioned by Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias. Dias, the first European to reach the area, arrived in 1488 and named it "Cape of Storms" (Cabo das Tormentas). It was later renamed by John II of Portugal as "Cape of Good Hope" (Cabo da Boa Esperança) because of the great optimism engendered by the opening of a sea route to the Indian subcontinent and East Indies.
In 1497, Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama recorded a sighting of the Cape of Good Hope.
In 1510, at the Battle of Salt River, the Portuguese admiral Francisco de Almeida and sixty-four of his men were killed and his party was defeated[17] by the !Uriǁ’aekua ("Goringhaiqua" in Dutch approximate spelling) using cattle that were specially trained to respond to whistles and shouts.[18] The !Uriǁ’aekua were one of the so-called Khoekhoe clans who inhabited the area.
In the late 16th century French, Danish, Dutch and English, but mainly Portuguese, ships regularly continued to stop over in Table Bay en route to the Indies. They traded tobacco, copper, and iron with the Khoekhoe clans of the region in exchange for fresh meat and other essential travelling provisions.
Dutch period
In 1652, Jan van Riebeeck and other employees of the United East India Company (Dutch: Verenigde Oost-indische Compagnie, VOC) were sent to the Cape Colony to establish a way-station for ships travelling to the Dutch East Indies, and the Fort de Goede Hoop (later replaced by the Castle of Good Hope). The settlement grew slowly during this period, as it was hard to find adequate labour. This labour shortage prompted the local authorities to import enslaved people from Indonesia and Madagascar. Many of these people are ancestors of modern-day Cape Coloured and Cape Malay communities.[19][20]
Under Van Riebeeck and his successors, as VOC commanders and later governors at the Cape, a wide range of agricultural plants were introduced to the Cape. Some of these, including grapes, cereals, ground nuts, potatoes, apples and citrus, had a large and lasting influence on the societies and economies of the region.[21]
British period
With the Dutch Republic being transformed into Revolutionary France's vassal Batavian Republic, Great Britain moved to take control of Dutch colonies, including the colonial possessions of the VOC.
Britain captured Cape Town in 1795, but it was returned to the Dutch by treaty in 1803. British forces occupied the Cape again in 1806 following the Battle of Blaauwberg when the Batavian Republic allied with Britain's rival, France, during the Napoleonic Wars. Following the conclusion of the war Cape Town was permanently ceded to the United Kingdom in the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814.
The city became the capital of the newly formed Cape Colony, whose territory expanded very substantially through the 1800s, partially as a result of numerous wars with the amaXhosa on the colony's eastern frontier. In 1833 slavery was abolished in the colony freeing over 5500 slaves in the city, almost a third of the city's population at the time.[22] The Convict Crisis of 1849, marked by substantial civil upheaval, bolstered the push for self-governance in the Cape.[23][24] With expansion came calls for greater independence from the UK, with the Cape attaining its own parliament (1854) and a locally accountable Prime Minister (1872). Suffrage was established according to the non-racial Cape Qualified Franchise.[25][26]
During the 1850s and 1860s, additional plant species were introduced from Australia by the British authorities. Notably rooikrans was introduced to stabilise the sand of the Cape Flats to allow for a road connecting the peninsula with the rest of the African continent[27] and eucalyptus was used to drain marshes.[28]
In 1859 the first railway line was built by the Cape Government Railways and a system of railways rapidly expanded in the 1870s. The discovery of diamonds in Griqualand West in 1867, and the Witwatersrand Gold Rush in 1886, prompted a flood of immigration into South Africa.[29] In 1895 the city's first public power station, the Graaff Electric Lighting Works, was opened.
Conflicts between the Boer republics in the interior and the British colonial government resulted in the Second Boer War of 1899–1902. Britain's victory in this war led to the formation of a united South Africa. From 1891 to 1901, the city's population more than doubled from 67,000 to 171,000.[30]
As the 19th century came to an end, the economic and political dominance of Cape Town in the Southern Africa region during the 19th century started to give way to the dominance of Johannesburg and Pretoria in the 20th century.[31]
South African period
In 1910, Britain established the Union of South Africa, which unified the Cape Colony with the two defeated Boer Republics and the British colony of Natal. Cape Town became the legislative capital of the Union, and later of the Republic of South Africa.
By the time of the 1936 census, Johannesburg had overtaken Cape Town as the largest city in the country.
In 1945 the expansion of the Cape Town foreshore was completed adding an additional 194 ha (480 acres) to the City Bowl area to the city centre.[33]
Apartheid era
Prior to the mid-twentieth century, Cape Town was one of the most racially integrated cities in South Africa.[34][35] In the 1948 national elections, the National Party won on a platform of apartheid (racial segregation) under the slogan of "swart gevaar" (Afrikaans for "black danger"). This led to the erosion and eventual abolition of the Cape's multiracial franchise.
In 1950, the apartheid government first introduced the Group Areas Act, which classified and segregated urban areas according to race. Formerly multi-racial suburbs of Cape Town were either purged of residents deemed unlawful by apartheid legislation, or demolished. The most infamous example of this in Cape Town was the suburb of District Six. After it was declared a whites-only area in 1965, all housing there was demolished and over 60,000 residents were forcibly removed.[36] Many of these residents were relocated to the Cape Flats.
The earliest of the Cape Flats forced removals saw the expulsion of Black South Africans to the Langa, Cape Town's first and oldest township, in line with the 1923 Native Urban Areas Act.
Under apartheid, the Cape was considered a "Coloured labour preference area", to the exclusion of "Bantus", i.e. Black Africans. The implementation of this policy was widely opposed by trade unions, civil society and opposition parties. It is notable that this policy was not advocated for by any Coloured political group, and its implementation was a unilateral decision by the apartheid government.[37] During the student-led Soweto Uprising of June 1976, school students from Langa, Gugulethu and Nyanga in Cape Town reacted to the news of the protests against Bantu Education by organising gatherings and marches of their own. A number of school buildings were burnt down and the protest action was met with forceful resistance from the police.[38][39]
Cape Town has been home to many leaders of the anti-apartheid movement. In Table Bay, 10 km (6 mi) from the city is Robben Island. This penitentiary island was the site of a maximum security prison where many famous apartheird-era political prisoners served long prison sentences. Famous prisoners include activist, lawyer and future president Nelson Mandela who served 18 of his 27 years of imprisonment on the island, as well as two other future presidents, Kgalema Motlanthe and Jacob Zuma.[40]
In one of the most famous moments marking the end of apartheid, Nelson Mandela made his first public speech since his imprisonment, from the balcony of Cape Town City Hall, hours after being released on 11 February 1990. His speech heralded the beginning of a new era for the country. The first democratic election, was held four years later, on 27 April 1994.[41][42][43]
Nobel Square in the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront features statues of South Africa's four Nobel Peace Prize winners: Albert Luthuli, Desmond Tutu, F. W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela.[relevant? – discuss]
Post-apartheid era
Cape Town has undergone significant changes in the years since Apartheid. Cape Town has experienced economic growth and development in the post-apartheid era. The city has become a major economic hub in South Africa, attracting international investment and tourism. The Democratic Alliance (DA), a liberal political party which came to power in Cape Town in 2006, has been credited with improving bureaucratic efficiency, public safety and fostering economic development.[44][45] Opinion polls show that South Africans see it as the best governed province and city in the country.[46][47] Of South Africa's 257 municipalities, only 38 received a clean financial audit in 2022 from the Auditor-General. Of those, 21 were in the Western Cape.[44] The city's economy has diversified, with growth in sectors such as finance, real estate, and tourism. The establishment of the City Centre Improvement District (CCID) has been particularly successful in revitalizing the city center, bringing businesses and people back into the area. This initiative has transformed public spaces such as Greenmarket Square, Company's Garden, and St George's Mall, attracting both locals and tourists.[48]
In 2014, Cape Town was named World Design Capital of the Year.[49] Cape Town was voted the best tourist destination in Africa at the 2023 World Travel Awards in Dubai and continues to be the most important tourist destination in the country.[50][51] Cape Town has been named the best travel city in the world every year since 2013 in the Telegraph Travel Awards.[52][53]
The legacy of apartheid's spatial planning is still evident, with significant disparities between affluent areas and impoverished townships.[54] 60% of the city's population live in townships and informal settlements far from the city centre.[55] The legacy of Apartheid means Cape Town remains one of the most racially segregated cities in South Africa.[56] Many Black South Africans continue to live in informal settlements with limited access to basic services such as healthcare, education, and sanitation.[54][57] The unemployment rate remains high at 23% (though nearly 10 points lower than the nationwide average), particularly among historically disadvantaged groups, and economic opportunities are unevenly distributed.[45]
Cape Town faced a severe water shortage from 2015 to 2018.[58] According to Oxfam, "in the face of an imminent water shortage, the city of Cape Town in South Africa successfully reduced its water use by more than half in three years, cutting it from 1.2bn litres per day in February 2015 to 516m litres per day in 2018."[59]
In 2021 Cape Town also experienced a violent turf war between rival taxi firms which led to the deaths of 83 people.
Since the 2010s, Cape Town and the wider Western Cape province have seen the rise of a small secessionist movement.[60] Support for parties "which have formally adopted Cape independence" was around 5% in the 2021 municipal elections.[61]
Geography and the natural environment
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Cape Town is located at latitude 33.55° S (approximately the same as Sydney and Buenos Aires and equivalent to Casablanca and Los Angeles in the northern hemisphere) and longitude 18.25° E.
Table Mountain, with its near vertical cliffs and flat-topped summit over 1,000 m (3,300 ft) high, and with Devil's Peak and Lion's Head on either side, together form a dramatic mountainous backdrop enclosing the central area of Cape Town, the so-called City Bowl. A thin strip of cloud, known colloquially as the "tablecloth" ("Karos" in Afrikaans), sometimes forms on top of the mountain. To the immediate south of the city, the Cape Peninsula is a scenic mountainous spine jutting 40 km (25 mi) southward into the Atlantic Ocean and terminating at Cape Point.
There are over 70 peaks above 300 m (980 ft) within Cape Town's official metropolitan limits. Many of the city's suburbs lie on the large plain called the Cape Flats, which extends over 50 km (30 mi) to the east and joins the peninsula to the mainland. The Cape Town region is characterised by an extensive coastline, rugged mountain ranges, coastal plains and inland valleys.
Extent
The extent of Cape Town has varied considerably over time. It originated as a small settlement at the foot of Table Mountain and has grown beyond its city limits as a metropolitan area to encompass the entire Cape Peninsula to the south, the Cape Flats, the Helderberg basin and part of the Steenbras catchment area to the east, and the Tygerberg hills, Blouberg and other areas to the north. Robben Island in Table Bay is also part of Cape Town. It is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and False Bay to the south. To the north and east, the extent is demarcated by boundaries of neighbouring municipalities within the Western Cape province.
The official boundaries of the city proper extend between the City Bowl and the Atlantic Seaboard to the east and the Southern Suburbs to the south. The City of Cape Town, the metropolitan municipality that takes its name from the city covers the Greater Cape Town metropolitan area, known as the Cape Metropole, extending beyond the city proper itself to include a number of satellite towns, suburbs and rural areas such as Atlantis, Bellville, Blouberg, Brackenfell, Durbanville, Goodwood, Gordon's Bay, Hout Bay, Khayelitsha, Kraaifontein, Kuilsrivier, Macassar, Melkbosstrand, Milnerton, Muizenberg, Noordhoek, Parow, Philadelphia, Simon's Town, Somerset West and Strand among others.[62][63]
The Cape Peninsula is 52 km (30 mi) long from Mouille Point in the north to Cape Point in the south,[64] with an area of about 470 km2 (180 sq mi), and it displays more topographical variety than other similar sized areas in southern Africa, and consequently spectacular scenery. There are diverse low-nutrient soils, large rocky outcrops, scree slopes, a mainly rocky coastline with embayed beaches, and considerable local variation in climatic conditions.[65] The sedimentary rocks of the Cape Supergroup, of which parts of the Graafwater and Peninsula Formations remain, were uplifted between 280 and 21S million years ago, and were largely eroded away during the Mesozoic. The region was geologically stable during the Tertiary, which has led to slow denudation of the durable sandstones. Erosion rate and drainage has been influenced by fault lines and fractures, leaving remnant steep-sided massifs like Table Mountain surrounded by flatter slopes of deposits of the eroded material overlaying the older rocks,[65]
There are two internationally notable landmarks, Table Mountain and Cape Point, at opposite ends of the Peninsula Mountain Chain, with the Cape Flats and False Bay to the east and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. The landscape is dominated by sandstone plateaux and ridges, which generally drop steeply at their margins to the surrounding debris slopes, interrupted by a major gap at the Fish Hoek–Noordhoek valley. In the south much of the area is a low sandstone plateau with sand dunes. Maximum altitude is 1113 m on Table Mountain.[65] The Cape Flats (Afrikaans: Kaapse Vlakte) is a flat, low-lying, sandy area, area to the east the Cape Peninsula, and west of the Helderberg much of which was wetland and dunes within recent history. To the north are the Tygerberg Hills and the Stellenbosch district.
The Helderberg area of Greater Cape Town, previously known as the "Hottentots-Holland" area, is mostly residential, but also a wine-producing area east of the Cape Flats, west of the Hottentots Holland mountain range and south of the Helderberg mountain, from which it gets its current name. The Helderberg consists of the previous municipalities of Somerset West, Strand, Gordons Bay and a few other towns. Industry and commerce is largely in service of the area. After the Cape Peninsula, Helderberg is the next most mountainous part of Greater Cape Town, bordered to the north and east by the highest peaks in the region along the watershed of the Helderberg and Hottentots Holland Mountains, which are part of the Cape Fold Belt with Cape Supergroup strata on a basement of Tygerberg Formation rocks intruded by part of the Stellenbosch granite pluton. The region includes the entire catchment of the Lourens and Sir Lowry's rivers, separated by the Schapenberg hill, and a small part of the catchment of the Eerste River to the west. The Helderberg is ecologically highly diverse, rivaling the Cape Peninsula, and has its own endemic ecoregions and several conservation areas.
To the east of the Hottentots Holland mountains is the valley of the Steenbras River, in which the Steenbras Dam was built as a water supply for Cape Town. The dam has been supplemented by several other dams around the western Cape, some of them considerably larger. This is almost entirely a conservation area, of high biodiversity. Bellville, Brackenfell, Durbanville, Kraaifontein, Goodwood and Parow are a few of the towns that make up the Northern Suburbs of Cape Town. In current popular culture these areas are often referred to as being beyond the "boerewors curtain," a play on the term "iron curtain."
UNESCO declared Robben Island in the Western Cape a World Heritage Site in 1999. Robben Island is located in Table Bay, some 6 km (3.7 mi) west of Bloubergstrand, a coastal suburb north of Cape Town, and stands some 30m above sea level. Robben Island has been used as a prison where people were isolated, banished, and exiled for nearly 400 years. It was also used as a leper colony, a post office, a grazing ground, a mental hospital, and an outpost.[66]
Geology
The Cape Peninsula is a rocky and mountainous peninsula that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean at the south-western extremity of the continent. At its tip is Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope. The peninsula forms the west side of False Bay and the Cape Flats. On the east side are the Helderberg and Hottentots Holland mountains. The three main rock formations are the late-Precambrian Malmebury group (sedimentary and metamorphic rock), the Cape Granite suit, comprising the huge Peninsula, Kuilsrivier-Helderberg, and Stellenbosch batholiths, that were intruded into the Malmesbury Group about 630 million years ago, and the Table Mountain group sandstones that were deposited on the eroded surface of the granite and Malmesbury series basement about 450 million years ago.
The sand, silt and mud deposits were lithified by pressure and then folded during the Cape Orogeny to form the Cape Fold Belt, which extends in an arc along the western and southern coasts. The present landscape is due to prolonged erosion having carved out deep valleys, removing parts of the once continuous Table Mountain Group sandstone cover from over the Cape Flats and False Bay, and leaving high residual mountain ridges.[67]
At times the sea covered the Cape Flats and Noordhoek valley and the Cape Peninsula was then a group of islands. During glacial periods the sea level dropped to expose the bottom of False Bay to weathering and erosion, with the last major regression leaving the entire bottom of False Bay exposed. During this period an extensive system of dunes was formed on the sandy floor of False Bay. At this time the drainage outlets lay between Rocky Bank Cape Point to the west, and between Rocky Bank and Hangklip Ridge to the east, with the watershed roughly along the line of the contact zone east of Seal Island and Whittle Rock.[67][68]: Ch2
Climate
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Cape Town has a warm Mediterranean climate (Köppen: Csb),[69][70][71] with mild, moderately wet winters and dry, warm summers. Winter, which lasts from June to September, may see large cold fronts entering for limited periods from the Atlantic Ocean with significant precipitation and strong north-westerly winds. Winter months in the city average a maximum of 18 °C (64 °F) and minimum of 8.5 °C (47 °F). Winters are snow and frost free, except on Table Mountain and on other mountain peaks, where light accumulation of snow and frost can sometimes occur.[72] Total annual rainfall in the city averages 515 mm (20.3 in) although in the Southern Suburbs, close to the mountains, rainfall is significantly higher and averages closer to 1,000 mm (39.4 in).
Summer, which lasts from December to March, is warm and dry with an average maximum of 26 °C (79 °F) and minimum of 16 °C (61 °F). The region can get uncomfortably hot when the Berg Wind, meaning "mountain wind", blows from the Karoo interior. Spring and summer generally feature a strong wind from the south-east, known locally as the south-easter or the Cape Doctor, so called because it blows air pollution away. This wind is caused by a persistent high-pressure system over the South Atlantic to the west of Cape Town, known as the South Atlantic High, which shifts latitude seasonally, following the sun, and influencing the strength of the fronts and their northward reach. Cape Town receives about 3,100 hours of sunshine per year.[73]
Water temperatures range greatly, between 10 °C (50 °F) on the Atlantic Seaboard, to over 22 °C (72 °F) in False Bay. Average annual ocean surface temperatures are between 13 °C (55 °F) on the Atlantic Seaboard (similar to Californian waters, such as San Francisco or Big Sur), and 17 °C (63 °F) in False Bay (similar to Northern Mediterranean temperatures, such as Nice or Monte Carlo).
Unlike other parts of the country the city does not have many thunderstorms, and most of those that do occur, happen around October to December and March to April.
| Climate data for Cape Town (1991–2020) | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Record high °C (°F) | 45.2 (113.4) |
38.3 (100.9) |
43.0 (109.4) |
38.6 (101.5) |
33.5 (92.3) |
29.8 (85.6) |
29.0 (84.2) |
32.0 (89.6) |
33.1 (91.6) |
37.2 (99.0) |
39.9 (103.8) |
41.4 (106.5) |
45.2 (113.4) |
| Mean daily maximum °C (°F) | 27.0 (80.6) |
27.3 (81.1) |
26.0 (78.8) |
23.6 (74.5) |
20.6 (69.1) |
18.2 (64.8) |
17.9 (64.2) |
18.0 (64.4) |
19.6 (67.3) |
22.2 (72.0) |
23.7 (74.7) |
25.8 (78.4) |
22.5 (72.5) |
| Daily mean °C (°F) | 21.8 (71.2) |
21.9 (71.4) |
20.5 (68.9) |
17.9 (64.2) |
15.4 (59.7) |
13.2 (55.8) |
12.7 (54.9) |
13.0 (55.4) |
14.5 (58.1) |
16.9 (62.4) |
18.6 (65.5) |
20.7 (69.3) |
17.3 (63.1) |
| Mean daily minimum °C (°F) | 16.6 (61.9) |
16.5 (61.7) |
15.0 (59.0) |
12.2 (54.0) |
10.2 (50.4) |
8.1 (46.6) |
7.4 (45.3) |
7.9 (46.2) |
9.4 (48.9) |
11.5 (52.7) |
13.4 (56.1) |
15.6 (60.1) |
12.0 (53.6) |
| Record low °C (°F) | 7.4 (45.3) |
6.4 (43.5) |
4.6 (40.3) |
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