Cape Town (Afrikaans: Kaapstad ; Xhosa: iKapa) is the second-most populous city in South Africa after Johannesburg, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality. The city 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. Cape Town is also Africa's most popular tourist destination.
Located on the shore of Table Bay, Cape Town was originally developed by the Dutch East India Company as a victualling (supply) station for Dutch ships sailing to Eastern Africa, India, and the Far East. Jan van Riebeeck's arrival on 6 April 1652 established the first permanent European settlement in South Africa. Cape Town quickly outgrew its original purpose as the first European outpost at the Castle of Good Hope, becoming the economic and cultural hub of the Cape Colony. Until the Witwatersrand Gold Rush and the development of Johannesburg, Cape Town was the largest city in South Africa. Today it is one of the most multicultural cities in the world, reflecting its role as a major destination for immigrants and expatriates to South Africa. As of 2011 the metropolitan region had an estimated population of 3.74 million.
The city was named the World Design Capital for 2014 by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design.
Read more about Cape Town: History, Geography, Suburbs, Government, Demographics, Economy, Tourism, Communications and Media, Sport, Education, Transport, Twin Towns – Sister Cities
Famous quotes containing the words cape and/or town:
“The allurement that women hold out to men is precisely the allurement that Cape Hatteras holds out to sailors: they are enormously dangerous and hence enormously fascinating. To the average man, doomed to some banal drudgery all his life long, they offer the only grand hazard that he ever encounters. Take them away, and his existence would be as flat and secure as that of a moo-cow.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“This was the most completely maritime town that we were ever in. It was merely a good harbor, surrounded by land, dry if not firm,—an inhabited beach, whereon fishermen cured and stored their fish, without any back country.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)