History of Cape Town

Cape Town was founded in 1652 by Jan van Riebeeck, an official of the Dutch East India Company, as a supply base for the company.

The area developed as a farming community for the company, and later for employees who left the company to work on their own.

In 1658 the company began to import slaves from India and Southeast Asia to aid the farming community.

Cape Town became the administrative center of an expanding Dutch colony in southern Africa, which later became known as Cape Colony.

The Dutch maintained control of Cape Town and the rest of Cape Colony throughout most of the 18th century, aided by the presence of French troops beginning in 1781.

Then in 1795 Britain seized and occupied Cape Colony.

The area reverted to Dutch control in 1803 but was reoccupied by the British in 1806.

In 1814 Britain declared Cape Colony a crown colony with Cape Town as its capital. Cape Town officially became a municipality in 1840 and acquired fully elective self-government in 1867.

The town’s population and industry grew rapidly following the opening of port facilities in 1870 and the discovery of diamonds and gold in the South African interior in the 1870s and 1880s.

In 1910 Cape Town became the legislative capital of the Union of South Africa (later the Republic of South Africa).

Satellite towns that developed around Cape Town were amalgamated into the City of Greater Cape Town in 1913.

Cape Town grew into a major metropolis in the period following World War II (1939-1945).

When the system of apartheid ended in the early 1990s, the city limits were expanded to include Cape Town’s large black and Coloured suburbs.