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Cape Town is the third most populous city in South Africa, forming part of the metropolitan municipality of the City of Cape Town.
It is the provincial capital of the Western Cape, as well as the legislative capital of South Africa, where the National Parliament and many government offices are located. 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. Often regarded as one of the world's most beautiful cities because of its geography, Cape Town is the most popular South African destination for tourism.
Cape Town originally developed as a victualling station for Dutch ships sailing to Eastern Africa, India, and Asia. Jan van Riebeeck's arrival on 6 April 1652 established the first permanent European settlement in sub-Saharan Africa. Cape Town quickly outgrew its original purpose as the first European outpost at the Castle of Good Hope. It was the largest city in South Africa until the growth of Johannesburg and Durban.
 TOURISM IN CAPE TOWN
Cape Town is one of the most popular tourist destinations in South Africa due to its good climate, natural setting, and relatively well-developed infrastructure. The city has several well-known natural features that attract tourists, most notably Table Mountain, which forms the majority of Table Mountain National Park and is the back end of the City Bowl. Reaching the top of the mountain can be achieved either by hiking up, or by taking the Table Mountain Cableway. Cape Point is recognised as the dramatic headland at the end of the Cape Peninsula. Many tourists also drive along Chapman's Peak Drive, a narrow road that links Noordhoek with Hout Bay, for the views of the Atlantic Ocean and nearby mountains. It is possible to either drive or hike up Signal Hill for closer views of the City Bowl and Table Mountain.
Many tourists also visit Cape Town's beaches, which are popular with local residents. Due to the city's unique geography, it is possible to visit several different beaches in the same day, each with a different setting and atmosphere. Beaches located on the Atlantic Coast tend to have very cold water as the water is mostly glacial melt from Antarctica. The water at False Bay beaches is often warmer by up to 10 °C (18 °F).
Both coasts are equally popular, although the beaches in affluent Clifton and elsewhere on the Atlantic Coast are better developed with restaurants and cafés. The most famous beach in Cape Town, Boulders Beach, is known for its colony of African penguins.
Surfing is also popular and the city hosts the Red Bull Big Wave Africa surfing competition every year.
The city also has several notable cultural attractions. The Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, built on top of part of the docks of the Port of Cape Town, is now one of the city's most popular shopping venues, with several hundred shops and the Two Oceans Aquarium.
Part of the V&A's charm, as it is locally known, is that the Port continues to operate and visitors can watch ships enter and leave. The V&A also hosts the Nelson Mandela Gateway, through which ferries depart for Robben Island.
It is possible to take a ferry from the V&A to Hout Bay, Simon's Town and the Cape Fur Seal colonies on Seal and Duiker Islands. Several companies offer tours of the Cape Flats, a mostly Coloured township, and Khayelitsha, a mostly black township. It is also possible to sleep overnight in Cape Town's townships. There are several B&B's where you can spend a safe and real African night.
Cape Town is also noted for its architectural heritage, with the highest density of Cape Dutch style buildings in the world. Cape Dutch style, which combines the architectural traditions of France, the Netherlands, and Germany, is most visible in Constantia, the old government buildings in the Central Business District, and along Long Street.
The annual Cape Town Minstrel Carnival, also known by its Afrikaans name of Kaapse Klopse, is a large minstrel festival held annually on January 2 or "Tweede Nuwe Jaar" (Afrikaans: Second New Year). Competing teams of minstrels parade in brightly coloured costumes, either carrying colourful umbrellas or playing an array of musical instruments. The Artscape Theatre Centre is the main performing arts venue in Cape Town.
Cape Town's transport system links it to the rest of South Africa; it serves as the gateway to other destinations within the province. The Cape Winelands and in particular the towns of Stellenbosch, Paarl and Franschhoek are popular day trips from the city for sightseeing and wine tasting.
Whale watching is popular amongst tourists: Southern Right Whales can be found off the coast during the breeding season (August to November) and Bryde's Whales can be seen any time of the year. The nearby town of Hermanus is known for its Whale Festival, but whales can also be seen in False Bay. Heaviside's dolphins are endemic to the area and can be seen from the coast north of Cape Town; dusky dolphins live along the same coast and can occasionally be seen from the ferry to Robben Island.
Approximately 1.5 million tourists visited in Cape Town during 2004, bringing in a total of R10 billion in revenue. The forecasts for 2006 anticipate 1.6 million tourists spending a total of R12 billion. The most popular areas for visitors to stay include Camps Bay, Sea Point, V & A Waterfront, Hout Bay, Rondebosch, Hermanus, Constantia, City Bowl, Somerset West and Newlands.
HISTORY OF CAPE TOWN
The first known people of the Western Cape area arrived from the north around 100,000 B.C. Little is known of the history of the region's first residents, as there is no written history of 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, but the area did not have regular contact with Europeans until 1652, when the Netherlands' Jan van Riebeeck and other employees of the Dutch East India Company were sent to the Cape to establish a way-station for ships travelling to the Dutch East Indies. The city grew slowly during this period, as it was hard to find adequate labourers. This labour shortage prompted the city to import slaves from Indonesia and Madagascar; many of whom would come to form the first of the Cape Coloured communities.
The British successfully gained outright control of Cape Town in 1795, during the Battle of Muizenberg. Under the terms of a peace agreement negotiated after the war, the Cape was returned to the Dutch in 1803. The war resumed later that year, and British forces re-occupied the Cape, after winning the Battle of Blaauwberg in 1806. In the 1814 peace treaty which ended the war in Europe, the Cape was permanently incorporated into the British Empire. As the territory under British control grew even larger outward from the city, it became the capital of the newly formed Cape Colony.
The discovery of diamonds in Griqualand West in 1869, and gold on the Witwatersrand in 1886, near the present-day city of Johannesburg prompted a massive gold rush. Johannesburg grew rapidly as the country was flooded with immigrants. Tensions also emerged between the Boers, who had taken part in the Great Trek and established republics in the centre of the country; the new migrants, known as uitlanders; and the British colonial government. This conflict resulted in the Second Anglo-Boer War. After the British won this war and acquired control of the gold and diamond industries, they unified the Cape Colony with the two defeated Boer Republics (the South African Republic and the Orange Free State) and the British colony of Natal to form the Union of South Africa, which was proclaimed in 1910 with Cape Town as its legislative capital, a function it has continued to serve for the Republic of South Africa from 1961 to the present.
In 1948, the National Party was elected on election promises of racial segregation laws, collectively known by the Afrikaans word apartheid. As a consequence of the Group Areas Act, which classified all areas of the country and city according to race, formerly multi-racial suburbs were either purged of unlawful residents or demolished. The most infamous example of this in Cape Town is District Six, which was demolished in 1965, prompting the forced removal of over 60,000 residents after it was declared a whites-only region. Many of these residents were relocated to the Cape Flats. Under apartheid, the Cape was considered a "Coloured labour preference area", to the exclusion of Black Africans.
Cape Town was home to many leaders of the anti-apartheid movement, despite many of the group's leaders' internment on Robben Island, a penitentiary island 10 kilometres out to sea from the city, where many famous political prisoners were held for many 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. Since 1994, the city has struggled with major problems such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and a surge in violent drug-related crime, which has given the city one of the highest homicide rates in the world. At the same time, the economy has surged to unprecedented levels due to the boom in the tourism and the real estate industries.
GEOGRAPHY AND CLIMATE
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 well over one kilometre (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 affectionately 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 (304.8 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 Peninsula has a Mediterranean climate with well-defined seasons. In winter, which lasts from May to August, 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). 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.
The valleys and coastal plains average 515 millimetres (20 in) of rain per annum, while mountain areas can average as much as 1,500 millimetres (60 in) per annum. Summer, which lasts from November to February, 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).
TRANSPORT
• Air
Cape Town International Airport serves both domestic and international flights. It is the second-largest airport in South Africa and serves as a major gateway for travellers to the Cape region. Cape Town has direct flights to most cities in South Africa as well as a number of international destinations.
As of June 2006, Cape Town International Airport is being upgraded to handle an expected increase in air traffic as tourism numbers will increase in the lead-up to the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The renovations include several large new parking garages, a revamped domestic departure terminal and a new international terminal. The airport's cargo facilities are also being expanded and several large empty lots are being developed into office space and hotels.
• Sea
Cape Town has a long tradition as a port city. The city's main port is located in Table Bay directly to the north of the central business district. The port is a hub for ships in the southern Atlantic: it is located along one of the busiest shipping corridors in the world. The Port of Cape Town is also a busy container port, second in South Africa only to Durban. In 2004, it handled 3,161 ships and 9.2 million tonnes of cargo.
Simon's Town Harbour on the False Bay coast of the Cape Peninsula is the main base of the South African Navy.
• Rail
The Shosholoza Meyl is the passenger rail operations of Spoornet and operates two long-distance passenger rail services from Cape Town: a daily service to and from Johannesburg via Kimberley and a weekly service to and from Durban via Kimberley, Bloemfontein and Pietermaritzburg. These trains terminate at Cape Town Railway Station and make a brief stop at Bellville. Cape Town is also one terminus of the luxury tourist-oriented Blue Train.
Metrorail operates a commuter rail service in Cape Town and the surrounding area. The Metrorail network consists of 96 stations throughout the suburbs and outskirts of Cape Town.
Road
Three national roads start in Cape Town: the N1 which links Cape Town with Bloemfontein, Johannesburg, Pretoria and Zimbabwe; the N2 which links Cape Town with Port Elizabeth, East London and Durban; and the N7 which links Cape Town with the Northern Cape Province and Namibia. The N1 and N2 both start in the Central Business District, and split to the east of the CBD, with the N1 continuing to the north east and the N2 heading south east past Cape Town International Airport. The N7 starts in Mitchells Plain and runs north, intersecting with the N1 and the N2 before leaving the city.
Cape Town also has a system of freeway and dual carriageway M-roads, which connect different parts of the city. The M3 splits from the N2 and runs to the south along the eastern slopes of Table Mountain, connecting the City Bowl with Muizenberg. The M5 splits from the N1 further east than the M3, and links the Cape Flats to the CBD. The R300, which is informally known as the Cape Flats Freeway, links Mitchells Plain with Bellville, the N1 and the N2.
• Buses
Golden Arrow Bus Services operates scheduled bus services throughout the Cape Town metropolitan area. Several companies run long-distance bus services from Cape Town to the other cities in South Africa.
• Taxis
Cape Town has two kinds of taxis: metered taxis and minibus taxis. Unlike many cities, metered taxis are not allowed to drive around the city to solicit fares and instead must be called to a specific location.
Minibus taxis are the standard form of transport for the majority of the population who cannot afford private vehicles. Although essential, these taxis are often poorly maintained and are frequently not road-worthy. These taxis make frequent unscheduled stops to pick up passengers, which causes accidents when drivers to the rear are unable to stop in time.
With the high demand for transport by the working class of South Africa, minibus taxis are often filled over their legal passenger allowance, making for high casualty rates when minibuses are involved in accidents. Minibuses are generally owned and operated in fleets, and inter-operator violence flares up from time to time, especially as turf wars occur over lucrative taxi routes.
Retrieved from Wikipedia.org, the Free Encyclopedia
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Canal Wall Mall in
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SPORTS IN CAPE TOWN:
Cape Town's most popular sports by participation are cricket, association football, swimming, and rugby.
The Stormers represent Western Province and Boland in the Southern Hemisphere's Super 14 rugby union competition. Cape Town is the home of the Western Province Rugby Union, who play at Newlands Stadium and compete in the Currie Cup. Cape Town also regularly hosts the national team, the Springboks, and hosted matches during the 1995 Rugby World Cup, including a semi-final.
Football, which is better known as soccer in South Africa, is also popular. Two clubs from Cape Town play in the Premier Soccer League (PSL), South Africa's premier league. These teams are Ajax Cape Town, which formed as a result of the 1999 amalgamation of the Seven Stars and the Cape Town Spurs; and Santos.
Cape Town will also be the location of several of the matches of the FIFA 2010 World Cup, which is to be held in South Africa. The Mother City is planning a new 70.000 seat domed in the Greenpoint area. The former Greenpoint Stadium will be demolished.
In cricket, the Cape Cobras represent Cape Town at the Newlands Cricket Ground. The team is the result of an amalgamation of the Western Province Cricket and Boland Cricket teams. They take part in the Supersport and Standard Bank Cup Series.
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Camps Bay, Cape Town
The University of Cape Town's main
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