Cape Town, South Africa

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the largest

in land area, forming part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan

municipality. It is the provincial capital and Primate City of the Western

Cape, as well as the legislative capital of South Africa, where the National

Parliament and many government offices are situated. Cape Town is famous for

its harbour as well as its natural setting in the Cape floral kingdom,

including such well-known landmarks as Table Mountain and Cape Point. Cape

Town is Africa's most popular destination for tourism.

Located on the shore of Table Bay, Cape Town was originally developed by the

Dutch East India Company as a victualling (supply) station for Dutch ships

sailing to Eastern Africa, India, and the Far East. Jan van Riebeeck's

arrival on 6 April 1652 established the first permanent European settlement

in South Africa. Cape Town quickly 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 South Africa.

It is one of the most multicultural cities in the world, reflecting its role

as a major destination for immigrants and expatriates to South Africa. As of

2007 the city had an estimated population of 3.5 million. Cape Town's land

area of 2,455 square kilometers (948 sq mi) is larger than other South

African cities, resulting in a comparatively lower population density of 1

425 inhabitants per square kilometer (3,690 /sq mi).

History

There is no certainty as to when humans first occupied the area prior to the

first visits of Europeans in the 15th century. The earliest known remnants

in the region were found at Peers cave in Fish Hoek and date to between 15

000 and 12,000 years ago. 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 in 1486. Vasco da

Gama recorded a sighting of the Cape of Good Hope in 1497, and the area did

not have regular contact with Europeans until 1652, when Jan van Riebeeck

and other employees of the Dutch East India Company (Dutch: Verenigde

Oost-indische Compagnie, VOC) were sent to the Cape to establish a

way-station for ships traveling to the Dutch East Indies, and the Redout

Duijnhoop (later replaced by the Castle of Good Hope). The city grew slowly

during this period, as it was hard to find adequate labor. This labor

shortage prompted the city to import slaves from Indonesia and Madagascar.

Many of these became ancestors of the first Cape Colored communities.

During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, the Netherlands was

repeatedly occupied by France, and Great Britain moved to take control of

Dutch colonies. Britain captured Cape Town in 1795, but the Cape was

returned to the Netherlands by treaty in 1803. British forces occupied the

Cape again in 1806 following the battle of Bloubergstrand. In the

Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814, Cape Town was permanently ceded to Britain. It

became the capital of the newly formed Cape Colony, whose territory expanded

very substantially through the 1800s.

The discovery of diamonds in Griqualand West in 1867, and the Witwatersrand

Gold Rush in 1886, prompted a flood of immigrants to South Africa. Conflicts

between the Boer republics in the interior and the British colonial

government resulted in the Second Boer War of 1899-1902, which Britain won.

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.

In the 1948 national elections, the National Party won on a platform of

apartheid (racial segregation) under the slogan of "swart gevaar". This led

to the Group Areas Act, which classified all areas according to race.

Formerly multi-racial suburbs of Cape Town were either purged of unlawful

residents or demolished. The most infamous example of this in Cape Town was

District Six. After it was declared a whites-only region in 1965, all

housing there was demolished and over 60,000 residents were forcibly removed

Many of these residents were relocated to the Cape Flats and Lavender Hill.

Under apartheid, the Cape was considered a "Colored labor preference area",

to the exclusion of "Bantus", i.e. blacks.

Cape Town was home to many leaders of the anti-apartheid movement. On Robben

Island, a former penitentiary island 10 kilometers from the city, many

famous political prisoners were held for years. In one of the most famous

moments marking the end of apartheid, Nelson Mandela made his first public

speech in decades on 11 February 1990 from the balcony of Cape Town City

Hall hours after being released. His speech heralded the beginning of a new

era for the country, and the first democratic election was held four years

later, on 27 April 1994. 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. Since 1994, the

city has struggled with problems such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, a surge in

violent drug-related crime and more recent xenophobic violence. At the same

time, the economy has surged to unprecedented levels due to the boom in the

tourism and the real estate industries.

Geography

The centre of Cape Town is located at the northern end of the Cape Peninsula

Table Mountain forms a dramatic backdrop to the City Bowl, with its plateau

over 1,000 m (3,300 ft) high; it is surrounded by near-vertical cliffs,

Devil's Peak and Lion's Head. Sometimes a thin strip of cloud forms over the

mountain, and owing to its appearance, it is colloquially known as the

tablecloth". The peninsula consists of a dramatic mountainous spine jutting

southwards into the Atlantic Ocean, ending at Cape Point. There are over 70

peaks above 1,000 feet (300 m) (the American definition of a mountain)

within Cape Town's official city limits. Many of the suburbs of Cape Town

are on the large plain of the Cape Flats, which joins the peninsula to the

mainland. The Cape Flats lie on what is known as a rising marine plain,

consisting mostly of sandy geology which shows that at one point Table

Mountain itself was an island.

Climate

The Cape Peninsula has a Mediterranean climate, this climate type means the

city has well-defined seasons. In winter time, which lasts from May to

September, large cold fronts come across from the Atlantic Ocean with heavy

precipitation and strong north-westerly winds. The winter months are cool,

with an average minimum temperature of 7 °C (45 °F) and an average maximum

of around 17 °C (63 °F). Most of the city's annual rainfall occurs in

wintertime, but due to the mountainous topography of the city, rainfall

amounts for specific areas can vary dramatically. Newlands, to the south of

the city, is the wettest suburb in South Africa. The valleys and coastal

plains average 515 millimeters (20 in) of rain per annum, while mountain

areas can average as much as 1,500 millimeters (60 in) per annum.

Summer, which lasts from November to March, is warm and dry. The Peninsula gets frequent strong winds from the south-east, known locally as the Cape Doctor, because it blows away pollution and cleans the air. The south-easterly wind is caused by a high-pressure system which sits in the South Atlantic to the west of Cape Town, known as the South-Atlantic High. Summer temperatures are mild, with an average maximum of 26 °C (79 °F). Cape Town can be uncomfortably hot when the Berg Wind, meaning "mountain wind" blows from the Karoo interior for a couple of weeks in February or early March.