Where are the homegrown settlements in Cape Town?
The homegrown settlements in Cape Town are often located on the periphery and are known as the Cape Flats. The Cape flats is a wide, low-lying area to the southeast of Cape Town’s center. Cape Flats is bound to the east and west by rising terrain that slopes up to the cliffs.
What is a Cape Flats in Cape Town?
In the context of Cape Town, citizens organize and occupy vacant lands, underutilized buildings to meet housing needs. The homegrown settlements in Cape Town are often located on the periphery and are known as the Cape Flats. The Cape flats is a wide, low-lying area to the southeast of Cape Town’s center.
What happened to the British colony of Cape Town?
Britain captured Cape Town in 1795, but the Cape was returned to the Dutch by treaty in 1803. British forces occupied the Cape again in 1806 following the Battle of Blaauwberg. In the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814, Cape Town was permanently ceded to Britain.
What is another name for Cape Town South Africa?
Alternative Titles: De Kaap, Kaapstad. 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.
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What is the name of the mountain in Cape Town?
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", sometimes forms on top of the mountain. To the immediate south, the Cape Peninsula is a scenic mountainous spine jutting 40 kilometres (25 mi) southwards into the Atlantic Ocean and terminating at Cape Point. There are over 70 peaks above 300 m (980 ft) within Cape Town's official city limits. Many of the city's suburbs lie on the large plain called the Cape Flats, which extends over 50 kilometres (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, inland valleys and semi-desert fringes.
How many people ride the Cape Town bike tour?
It sees over 35,000 cyclists tackling a 109 km (68 mi) route around Cape Town. The Absa Cape Epic is the largest full-service mountain bike stage race in the world.
What year did the protests against Bantu Education take place?
School students from Langa, Gugulethu and Nyanga in Cape Town reacted to the news of protests against Bantu Education in Soweto in June 1976 and organised gatherings and marches, which were met with resistance from the police.
How many wards are there in Cape Town?
Cape Town is governed by a 231-member city council elected in a system of mixed-member proportional representation. The city is divided into 116 wards, each of which elects a councillor by first-past-the-post voting. The remaining 115 councillors are elected from party lists so that the total number of councillors for each party is proportional to the number of votes received by that party.
What was the name of the colony that was unified by the British in 1910?
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 .
How much rainfall does the Cape Flats get?
The rainfall patterns on the Cape Flats vary with longitude, such that the eastern parts get a minimum of 214mm per year and the central and western parts get 800mm per year. A significant portion of this water ends up in the Cape Flats Aquifer, which lie beneath the central and southern parts of the Cape Flats.
What is the capital of South Africa?
Cape Town ( Afrikaans: Kaapstad; [ˈkɑːpstat], Xhosa: iKapa, Khoekhoe: //Hui !gaeb) is the second-most populous city in South Africa, after Johannesburg, and also the legislative capital of South Africa . Colloquially named the Mother City, it is the largest city of the Western Cape province and forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan ...
Peripheries of Cape town
In the context of Cape Town, citizens organize and occupy vacant lands, underutilized buildings to meet housing needs. The homegrown settlements in Cape Town are often located on the periphery and are known as the Cape Flats. The Cape flats is a wide, low-lying area to the southeast of Cape Town’s center.
Construction
To form a new homegrown settlement, people who require housing, come together around this need and organize themselves. On finding a vacant piece of land, they plan to go and build on a particular day. Once everybody settles, a self-appointed group who are familiar with the layout of the land, negotiate and divide this land.
Resilience
Natural disasters in South Africa happen almost every year, and the common ones in Cape town are floods and drought. Vulnerability to flooding is exasperated for homegrown settlements that are located in flood-prone, poorly drained areas such as the Cape Flats.
What shaped the direction of Cape Town's growth?
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.
What is the climate of Cape Town?
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 ...
How big is Cape Town?
The city covers an area of 116 square miles (300 square kilometres). Pop. (2005 est.) urban agglom., 3,103,000.
Why is Cape Town called the mother city of South Africa?
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. 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;
What was the name of the road that led from the shore inland to the Dutch East India Company’s produce garden?
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.
What is the capital of South Africa?
national legislative capital, South Africa. 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 ...
How many acres are there in Duncan Dock?
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.
Why did the Khoikhoi want to barter with the natives?
The intention of the company was that the settlers would grow enough food to supply passing ships, so they hoped to barter with the natives and avoid fighting with them. However, because the Khoikhoi did not want to sell enough cattle for the settlement to meet its needs, there began to be conflicts.
Who were the first traders in the Cape of Good Hope?
Although the Portuguese first reached the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, the first serious traders were the Dutch, or as they came to be known, the Boers, or Afrikaners. Boer means farmer, the occupation of most of the settlers. The Fort de Goede Hope was built in 1652 when merchant Jan Van Riebeeck created the first settlement.
Overview
Cape Town is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest (after Johannesburg). Colloquially named the Mother City, it is the largest city of the Western Cape province, and is managed by the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality. The other two ca…
Geography and the natural environment
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 en…
Communities and the built environment
Cape Town's urban geography is influenced by the contours of Table Mountain, the surrounding peaks of the Cape Peninsula, the Durbanville Hills, and the expansive lowland region known as the Cape Flats. These geographic features in part divide the city into several commonly known groupings of suburbs (equivalent to districts outside South Africa), many of which developed histori…
Government
Cape Town is governed by a 231-member city council elected in a system of mixed-member proportional representation. The city is divided into 116 wards, each of which elects a councillor by first-past-the-post voting. The remaining 115 councillors are elected from party lists so that the total number of councillors for each party is proportional to the number of votes received by that party.
Demographics
According to the South African National Census of 2011, the population of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality – an area that includes suburbs and exurbs – is 3,740,026 people. This represents an annual growth rate of 2.6% compared to the results of the previous census in 2001 which found a population of 2,892,243 people. Of those residents who were asked about their first language, 35.7% spoke Afrikaans, 29.8% spoke Xhosa and 28.4% spoke English. 24.8% of the pop…
Crime
In recent years, the city has struggled with drugs, a surge in violent drug-related crime and more recently gang violence. In the Cape Flats alone, there were approximately 100,000 people in over 130 different gangs in 2018. While there are some alliances, this multitude and division is also cause for conflict between groups. At the same time, the economy has grown due to the boom i…
History
The earliest known remnants of human occupation 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 1488 who was the first European to reach the area and named it "Cape of Storms" (Cabo das Tormentas). It was later renamed by John II of Portugal as "…
Culture
• Artscape Theatre Centre at Foreshore.
• The distinctive Cape Malay Bo-Kaap is one of the most visited areas in Cape Town.
• Mostert's Mill
• Groote Kerk, Cape Town