History of Cape Town

Cape Town is famous for its harbor 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 Africa's most popular destination for tourism.

Cape Town is the second most populous city in South Africa, and the largest in land area, forming part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality. It is the provincial capital of the Western Cape, as well as the legislative capital of South Africa, where the National Parliament and many government offices are situated.

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.

As of 2007 the city had an estimated population of 3.5 million. Cape Town's land area of 2,455 square kilometers is larger than other South African cities, resulting in a comparatively low population density of 1,425 inhabitants per square kilometer

There is no certainty as to when humans first occupied the area prior to the first visits of Europeans in the 15th century. The earliest known remnants in the region were found at Peers cave in Fish Hoek and date 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 the Portuguese explorer Bartholomeu Dias in 1486. Vasco da Gama recorded a sighting of the Cape of Good Hope in 1497, and the area did not have regular contact with Europeans until 1652, when Jan van Riebeeck and other employees of the Dutch East India Company were sent to the Cape to establish a way-station for ships traveling to the Dutch East Indies. The Dutch named the way-station Redout Duijnhoop Which was later replaced by the Castle of Good Hope, which still exists and is defiantly worth a visit. The city grew slowly during this period, as it was hard to find adequate labor. This labor shortage prompted the city to import slaves from Indonesia and Madagascar. Many of these became ancestors of the first Cape Colored communities.