Cape Town
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Cape Town, city and seaport, legislative capital of South Africa and capital of Western Cape province. The city lies at the northern end of the Cape Peninsula some 30 miles (50 kilometres), at its southernmost boundary, north of the Cape of Good Hope. Because it was the site of the first European settlement in South Africa, Cape Town is known as the country’s “mother city.”
Cape Town has a beautiful setting: parts of the city and its suburbs wind about the steep slopes of Table Mountain (3,563 feet [1,086 metres] high) and neighbouring peaks and rim the shores of Table Bay; other parts lie on the flats below the slopes or stretch southward across the flats to False Bay. The city covers an area of 116 square miles (300 square kilometres). Pop. (2005 est.) urban agglom., 3,103,000.
Physical and human geography
The character of the city
The city of Cape Town had its origin in 1652, when the Dutch East India Company established a refreshment station for its ships on the shores of Table Bay. The location was magnificent, on well-watered, fertile soil, beneath the precipitous walls of Table Mountain. The indigenous inhabitants provided cattle but not labour, and the company imported slaves, mainly from East Africa, Madagascar, and the Bay of Bengal area. The slaves brought with them something of their culture and—especially in the case of the Muslims from the East Indies—their religion. Mixed-race unions took place, but strong racial and ethnic characteristics remained. In 1781 the French established a garrison to help the Dutch defend the city against British attack, and the French presence influenced local architecture and culture. British occupation in the 19th century brought new parliamentary and judicial concepts and freedom for the slaves. Cape Town was the gateway to Europe’s penetration of the South African interior, and close ties with continental Europe were maintained.
Today Cape Town is a modern city with high-rise office buildings and pedestrian malls. Although it is a major political and economic centre, its reputation still rests on its beautiful situation between mountain and sea, its cosmopolitan population, and the liberal outlook of many of its citizens.
The landscape
The city site
The first settlement of Cape Town was situated between Table Mountain and Table Bay. It was bounded on the northwest by the ridges known as Lion’s Head and Lion’s Rump (later called Signal Hill), on the north by Table Bay, on the south by Devil’s Peak, and on the east by marshlands and the sandy Cape Flats beyond. The nearest tillable land was on the lower eastern slopes of Devil’s Peak and Table Mountain and, farther to the southeast, at Rondebosch, Newlands, and Wynberg. From the fortress that protected the settlement, a track led south past these lands to False Bay on the eastern side of the Cape Peninsula and on beyond Muizenberg and Kalk Bay to Simon’s Bay, where the East Indiaman trade ships could find shelter from northwesterly winter gales. The constraints of mountain, sea, and sand shaped the direction of Cape Town’s growth, and the pattern was followed in subsequent road and rail construction. A railway line reached Wynberg in 1864 and Muizenberg in 1883, and another line ran eastward from Cape Town across the Flats to the interior.
Climate
The climate of Cape Town is Mediterranean in type; it is locally modified by the mass of Table Mountain and by the cold Benguela Current of the South Atlantic Ocean. The average high temperature is 70° F (21° C), in January and February, and the average low is 55° F (13° C), in July, but temperatures are cooler on the mountain slopes and on the coast. Freezing occurs infrequently. On the average, rain falls on 69 days of the year; about half of the 26 inches (660 millimetres) of annual rainfall occurs between June and August, the southern winter. The amount of rainfall varies with proximity to the mountain, with areas close to the slopes receiving as much as twice the precipitation of areas farther away. The winds, generally strong, come from the northwest in winter and vary from between southeast and southwest in summer. Southerly winds produce a cloud cover over Table Mountain known as the “tablecloth.” These winds are collectively referred to as the “Cape doctor” because they keep air pollution at a low level.
The city layout
The narrow streets of the early settlement ran parallel to the shore. The road that led from the shore inland to the Dutch East India Company’s produce garden became the main thoroughfare. Originally called the Heerengracht, for the canal in Amsterdam of that name, it was renamed Adderley Street in 1850. Other main roads paralleled it as the town grew. In Strand Street, on what once was the shore of Table Bay, stands the Castle of Good Hope, built by the company between 1666 and 1679. Near the Castle are the Botanic Gardens, which are bisected by Government Avenue and overlooked by government buildings. A parliament building, constructed for the use of the colonial government and first occupied in 1885, became the seat of the Parliament of the Union of South Africa in 1910 and of the Republic of South Africa in 1961. Additions to the building were opened in 1987.
The opening of the Alfred Dock in 1870 led to renewed development along the shore. The breakwater was lengthened and piers were built in 1890–95, and the newly sheltered area was named Victoria Basin. Dredging for the Duncan Dock, built between 1938 and 1945 to accommodate larger vessels, and for the Ben Schoeman Dock in 1977, resulted in the reclamation of 480 acres (194 hectares) along the shore, referred to as the Foreshore. Adderley Street was extended to the new harbour, and the extension was named the Heerengracht.
The building of a modern system of freeways has greatly facilitated movement between the city and its suburbs. There has been a considerable increase in population and commercial activity in the southern suburbs, especially in Claremont and Wynberg. Particularly favoured residential areas are on the slopes east of Table Mountain and on the slopes of Signal Hill, overlooking Bantry Bay and the beaches of Clifton.
Much of Cape Town’s early architecture reflected prototypes from the Netherlands that were modified for the region. Characteristics included flat roofs, projecting porches, and distinctive gables. Louis-Michel Thibault, a French architect who arrived in 1783, designed much that was then fashionable, including the Old Supreme Court building, now the South African Cultural History Museum. Notable buildings of the period include the Old Town House and the Lutheran Church. Of the original Groote Kerk (Great Church), opened in 1704, only the steeple and vestry remain; the rest was rebuilt in the 1830s. Today buildings in the central business district and on the Foreshore follow modern international trends in architecture.
The people of Cape Town
More than half of the residents of the city and metropolitan area are Coloured (the former official term for people of mixed race), about one-fourth are white, about one-fifth are Black, and the remainder are of Asian—primarily Indian—origin. In the metropolitan area Afrikaans is the first language of almost half the Coloureds and whites. Almost one-quarter speak English as a first language, and another quarter are equally at home in both languages. The Black population is predominantly Xhosa-speaking. The majority of the residents are members of Protestant churches, but there are also sizable communities of Roman Catholics and Muslims.
South Africa’s Group Areas Act of 1966 consolidated earlier acts aimed at enforcing the policy of racial segregation known as apartheid, and it provided for the reservation of certain areas for residence and occupation by specific racial groups within the population. The act brought about many changes in Cape Town’s residential areas; for example, a mixed but predominantly Coloured neighbourhood known as District Six, south of the Castle, was cleared by bulldozers. Special legislation permitted Coloureds who were living in Cape Town’s Malay Quarter to remain, but other Coloured and Indian families were forced to move to designated areas, mostly east of the Cape Town–Muizenberg railway line and onto the Cape Flats. According to figures submitted to Parliament, by the end of 1980 some 29,300 Coloured and 1,500 Indian families, but only 195 white families, had been resettled on the Cape Peninsula. Because housing in the prescribed areas was inadequate, in 1975 the city undertook construction with government funding of a model township of 40,000 houses for Coloured families at Mitchells Plain, southeast of the city. Indian families were installed at Rylands and Pelikan Park. In 1990 the government did an about-face over District Six, opening it to residence by all sections of the Cape Town community.
Nearly all of the Black population in Cape Town was confined to Guguletu and Nyanga West within the city limits and to neighbouring Nyanga and Langa. With the abolition of influx controls in the 1980s, a great movement of Black Africans into Cape Town and other urban areas from impoverished Black states began, and camps of squatters were soon overcrowded. The government established a township for Black Africans at Khayelitsha, east of Mitchells Plain, and squatter camps were then demolished in 1986 in an attempt to direct the Black Africans there.
The economy
Industry and commerce
Cape Town was South Africa’s economic base until the discovery and exploitation of minerals in the interior; today it is one of the nation’s most important industrial centres and a major seaport. About nine-tenths of the fish eaten in South Africa is distributed through Cape Town, and Table Bay is one of the world’s largest fruit-exporting harbours. A petroleum refinery and chemical, fertilizer, cement, and automobile-assembly factories are situated in the metropolitan area. In the city the basic industries are connected with ship repair and maintenance, food processing, and wine making and with the manufacture of clothing, plastics, and leather goods. Tourism is of growing importance.
Cape Town is well served by department stores and supermarkets. A number of nationwide commercial concerns have their head offices in Cape Town, including oil and insurance companies.
Transportation
The port of Cape Town handles some five million tons of cargo annually. The port does not admit ships of more than 40-foot draft at low tide, but its repair facilities and dry dock are important to interoceanic traffic. The Ben Schoeman Dock accommodates container traffic.
Cape Town International Airport has regular flights to Europe and North and South America. The bulk of its flights, however, are domestic. Cape Town is the terminus of a railway network that extends northward to Zimbabwe and beyond.
Two main radial freeways lead southward to False Bay. Supplementing these are two national routes and a beltway circling the central business district. An elevated freeway extends across the city’s shore area. Public transport is particularly important for those who live far from their place of employment. Spoornet, which operates suburban trains, and a private bus company serve the Cape Town area. There also are minibuses that provide cheap, fast transportation.
