51 Fun Facts About Cape Town

Cape Town is which kind of capital for South Africa?

The legislative capital. The constitution names Cape Town as the seat of Parliament, yet lets Parliament pass an Act moving that seat elsewhere.

At the 2022 census, Cape Town was South Africa's second-largest metro by population, after which city?

Johannesburg. Founded only in 1886, more than two centuries after the Dutch settled the Cape, it counted about 30,000 more residents than Cape Town in 2022.

Which Portuguese navigator, the first European to reach the Cape in 1488, is said to have named it the 'Cape of Storms'?

Bartolomeu Dias. On a later voyage in May 1500, a storm off that same cape wrecked his ship and he was lost at sea.

Who founded the Dutch settlement at the Cape in 1652 as a way-station for East Indies ships?

Jan van Riebeeck. On arrival he built a fort of clay and timber, which the stone Castle of Good Hope later replaced.

What shape is Cape Town's 17th-century Castle of Good Hope?

Pentagonal. Rumours of war between Britain and the Netherlands in 1664 led to orders for this stone fortress to replace the old clay fort.

At which 1806 battle near Cape Town did a British invasion force defeat the Dutch and take the Cape?

Blaauwberg. General Janssens's Batavian force withdrew, and a formal capitulation ten days later left the Cape a British colony.

Which Cape Town neighbourhood was declared a whites-only area in 1966, after which its homes were bulldozed?

District Six. Its residents were forcibly removed to the barren Cape Flats, and bulldozers flattened their houses.

Robben Island's name comes from a Dutch word for which animals?

Seals. The island was already holding political prisoners in the 1600s, three centuries before Mandela arrived.

From which building's balcony did Mandela give his first public speech in 27 years on 11 February 1990?

Cape Town City Hall. Hours after his release, he called de Klerk a man of integrity yet urged the struggle to intensify.

Nobel Square at the V&A Waterfront has statues of Mandela, Tutu, de Klerk and which other Peace laureate?

Albert Luthuli. Africa's first Nobel Peace laureate, the banned ANC leader was let out of South Africa only briefly to collect his prize in Oslo.

Which gorge on the city-facing side of Table Mountain is its most popular hiking route to the top?

Platteklip Gorge. The Portuguese captain António de Saldanha climbed it in 1503 to get a high view and work out where he had landed.

The cloud that often spreads over the flat top of Cape Town's best-known mountain is nicknamed what?

The Tablecloth. The French astronomer Lacaille, who noted it forming as a strong south-easterly approached, named a constellation, Mensa, after the mountain.

The strong south-easterly wind of spring and summer is nicknamed the Cape Doctor because it does what?

Blows air pollution away. Nineteenth-century writers credited the south-easter with blowing disease-carrying 'pestilential vapours' out to sea.

Table Mountain's vegetation is mostly which type, unique to South Africa's Cape?

Fynbos. This ancient vegetation depends on fire, and needs regular burning to regenerate and stay healthy.

What do the floors of Table Mountain's cable cars do during the ride?

Rotate a full circle. That gives every one of the 65 passengers a panoramic 360-degree view on the way up.

Which landmark marks Table Mountain's highest point?

Maclear's Beacon. Astronomer Thomas Maclear had the stone cairn built as a triangulation station to help measure the curvature of the Earth.

Which headland, rather than the Cape of Good Hope, is Africa's southernmost point?

Cape Agulhas. Its coast wrecked so many ships, among them the Arniston, that a lighthouse was built there to warn others.

Why was Cape Point's first lighthouse, built high on the peak, replaced by a lower one?

Mist often hid it, so ships rounding the point still crashed onto the rocks nearby.

Cape Town's Boulders Beach is famous for a colony of which animals?

African penguins. The colony grew from just a handful of birds, helped by a ban on commercial fishing in False Bay that boosted their food supply.

Kirstenbosch, founded in 1913, is a botanical garden devoted mainly to what?

A country's indigenous plants. Its first director, Harold Pearson, took no salary and, after dying in 1916, was buried in the garden.

Which Cape Town art museum, opened in 2017, occupies a historic grain silo at the harbour?

Zeitz MOCAA. Rather than demolish the silo's 42 concrete tubes, which once stored maize, Heatherwick's studio cut into them to carve out a cathedral-like atrium.

What does the name 'Bo-Kaap' mean?

Above the Cape. Once slavery ended at the Cape in the 1830s, many freed slaves, a large number of them Muslim, settled in the neighbourhood.

Cape Town's V&A Waterfront is named after Queen Victoria and which of her sons?

Prince Alfred. He launched work on the harbour's breakwater in 1860, after winter storms had wrecked many ships moored in Table Bay.

Cape Town Stadium in Green Point was built for which event?

The 2010 FIFA World Cup. The Stormers rugby side later moved there from their historic Newlands ground, and in 2021 it was renamed DHL Stadium.

The Cape Town Cycle Tour holds what world record?

Largest individually timed road race. It began in 1978 as the Big Ride-In, a protest ride staged to demand safer cycle paths.

Which Cape Town hospital was the site of the world's first human-to-human heart transplant, in 1967?

Groote Schuur. The recipient, Louis Washkansky, died of pneumonia just 18 days after the operation.

At the 2011 census, which first language was most common among Cape Town's residents?

Afrikaans. In 1976, a rule forcing Black schools to teach some subjects in it sparked the Soweto uprising.

Cape Town's 2 January Minstrel Carnival took its style partly from touring minstrel troupes from which country?

The United States. Early American minstrel troupes touring the Cape blackened their faces with burnt cork, and the custom caught on locally.

As a stopover midway along the route to the East Indies, Cape Town earned which nickname?

Tavern of the Seas. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 gave ships a shorter route east, ending the Cape's days as the main stop between Europe and Asia.

Cape Town's severe water crisis of 2015–18 was framed around a looming date known as what?

Day Zero. Residents cut their water use by more than half, and after winter rains returned, the city declared in June 2018 that it had been averted.

Which wine estate, founded in 1685 near Cape Town, is South Africa's oldest?

Groot Constantia. The Constantia valley's sweet wine grew so famous that the exiled Napoleon had it shipped to him on St Helena.

In 2014, Cape Town became the first African city to hold which title?

World Design Capital. The city ran co-design workshops where officials, designers and residents worked together to solve problems in their own wards.

Which party won the most council seats in Cape Town's 2006 municipal election?

The Democratic Alliance. Short of a majority, it took power through a multi-party coalition.

Which was Cape Town's first township, created for Black South Africans under the 1923 Native Urban Areas Act?

Langa. In March 1960, a 23-year-old activist, Philip Kgosana, led a vast crowd from there into central Cape Town to protest the pass laws.

Which Cape Town park was first planted in the 1650s to grow vegetables for passing ships?

The Company's Garden. It was later relaid for beauty rather than food, and most of its plants now serve a decorative purpose.

In the 1800s, why did colonial authorities plant Australian wattles across the Cape Flats?

To stop sand dunes drifting. The plan worked, but the wattles then spread so widely that they took over vast areas of the Flats.

In 1849, Cape colonists refused to let which passengers land from the British ship Neptune?

Convicts. Anyone who supplied the ship faced a boycott, and it eventually sailed on with them to Van Diemen's Land.

Which mineral discoveries of the late 1800s set off a flood of immigration into South Africa?

Diamonds and gold. The riches they created fuelled the rise of the mining magnate Cecil Rhodes, who became the Cape's prime minister in 1890.

Cape Town's municipal bus rapid transit network is known by which name?

MyCiTi. Its first main route went to Table View because the West Coast suburbs there had heavy commuter demand but no train service.

After its years as government offices, Cape Town's former Slave Lodge housed which institution?

The Supreme Court. The building later became a museum, and it now tells the story of the enslaved people once held there.

Which crime writer learned to surf at Muizenberg in Cape Town in 1922?

Agatha Christie. She and her husband Archie were in South Africa on a ten-month tour promoting the British Empire Exhibition.

Before the Dutch settled Table Bay in 1652, visiting sailors left letters for other ships under what?

Engraved stones. Captains of later ships lifted the stones, took the letters onward and left news of their own.

Table Mountain's flat top and steep grey crags are made mainly of which rock?

Sandstone. This hard, quartz-rich rock resists erosion far better than softer layers, so it forms the mountain's high cliffs.

Which chip-stuffed sandwich originated in Cape Town?

The Gatsby. Shop owner Rashaad Pandy says he first made it in 1976 as a filling meal for workers he had hired.

In Cape Town, what is a koe'sister?

A spiced dumpling with coconut. Many families in Cape Town traditionally eat it for breakfast on Sunday mornings.

Which Cape Town CBD café has been hailed as the world's best coffee shop?

Truth. Haldane Martin chose a steampunk look for it because coffee roasters and espresso machines recall romantic, steam-powered technology.

Cape Town boatbuilder Robertson and Caine builds which vessels?

Luxury catamarans. Charter firms such as The Moorings and Sunsail buy versions of its boats to rent out to holiday sailors.

Which harbour near Cape Town is the main base of the South African Navy?

Simon's Town. For well over a century it was a base for Britain's Royal Navy, which handed it over to South Africa only in 1957.

Which shipping company linked Cape Town with the UK and St Helena until the 1970s?

Union-Castle. Competition from jet airliners drew off its passengers and helped bring its mail ship service to an end.

Which city beat Cape Town and three other rivals to win the 2004 Summer Olympics?

Athens. Its bid to host the 1996 centennial Games had lost out to Atlanta, so this victory marked a comeback.

At a 1989 anti-apartheid march in Cape Town, a police water cannon sprayed protesters with dye of what colour?

Purple. One protester climbed onto the truck, seized the nozzle and turned the spray on offices of the ruling National Party.