The Cape Peninsula (Afrikaans: Kaapse Skiereiland) is a generally rocky peninsula that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean at the south-western extremity of the African continent. At the southern end of the peninsula are Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope. On the northern end is Table Mountain, overlooking Cape Town, South Africa. The peninsula is 52 km long from Mouille point in the north to Cape Point in the south.
The peninsula was once an island, but about sixty million years ago it was joined to the mainland by the emergence from the sea of the sandy area now known as the Cape Flats. The towns and villages of the Cape Peninsula now form part of the City of Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality.
The Cape of Good Hope is sometimes given as the meeting point of the Atlantic Ocean and Indian Ocean, and the west coast of the Peninsula is colloquially referred to as the "Atlantic Coast", with the western (False Bay) side sometimes referred to as the "Indian Ocean Coast"
Similarly, Cape Point is not the fixed meeting point of the Benguela Current, running north from the Antarctic and up the west coast of Africa, and the Agulhas Current, running south from the equator along the east coast of Africa. The meeting point fluctuates along the southern and southwestern Cape coast, usually occurring between Cape Agulhas and Cape Point.
Famous quotes containing the word cape:
“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)