The Cape Flats (Afrikaans: Die Kaapse Vlakte) is an expansive, low-lying, flat area situated to the southeast of the central business district of Cape Town. To many people in Cape Town, the area is known simply as 'The Flats'.
Described by some as 'apartheid's dumping ground', from the 1950s the area became home to people the apartheid government designated as non-White. Race-based legislation such as the Group Areas Act and pass laws either forced non-white people out of more central urban areas designated for white people and into government-built townships in the Flats, or made living in the area illegal, forcing many people designated as Black and Coloured into informal settlements elsewhere in the Flats. The Flats have since then been home to much of the population of Greater Cape Town.
Read more about Cape Flats: Geology and Geography, History, Modern History, Politics and Culture, Areas On The Cape Flats
Famous quotes containing the words cape and/or flats:
“A solitary traveler whom we saw perambulating in the distance loomed like a giant. He appeared to walk slouchingly, as if held up from above by straps under his shoulders, as much as supported by the plain below. Men and boys would have appeared alike at a little distance, there being no object by which to measure them. Indeed, to an inlander, the Cape landscape is a constant mirage.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I have a Vision of the Future, chum.
The workers’ flats in fields of soya beans
Tower up like silver pencils, score on score.”
—Sir John Betjeman (1906–1984)