Population and Culture of Cape Town

Cape Town’s city population in 2001 was 2,993,000, and its metropolitan area population was 2,893,247.

In the mid-1990s, 48 percent of Cape Town’s inhabitants were Coloured (people of mixed race), 27 percent were black, 23 percent were white, and 2 percent were Asian.

Most of the city’s inhabitants are Protestants; however, the Cape Malays form a distinctive Muslim minority within the Coloured population, and adherence to Islam has grown among other Coloured people in recent years.

Afrikaans is the language of at least half of the city’s Coloureds and almost half of the whites, with the rest of those groups speaking English or identifying themselves as bilingual.

Most blacks speak Xhosa as their primary language.

Under apartheid—that is, South Africa’s system of racial segregation that was in effect between 1948 and the early 1990s—whites, Coloureds, blacks, and Asians were forced to live in separate residential areas. Although segregation laws are no longer in effect, many of Cape Town’s neighborhoods remain largely segregated by race.

Predominantly white neighborhoods are located northeast of the city center and on the Atlantic coast west of Lion’s Head.

Cape Flats, in the east, and Mitchell’s Plain, in the southeast, are traditionally Coloured areas.

Black neighborhoods, most located far from the city center, include the townships of Langa, Nyanga, and Guguletu, along with Khayelitsha, a township in which the housed population is now greatly exceeded by the squatter population.

Black shantytowns such as Marconi Beam have developed closer to the city. Since the end of apartheid in the early 1990s, more affluent blacks, Coloureds, and Asians have begun moving into the historically white areas of Cape Town.

( The University of Cape Town )
The University of Cape Town (founded as South African College in 1829 and established as a full university in 1918) is one of South Africa’s leading universities.

The University of the Western Cape (1960), founded originally as a university for Coloureds but now open to all races, is located on the city’s outskirts.

( The ARTSCAPE Theatre )
Cape Town has a municipal Symphony Orchestra, and the ARTSCAPE Theatre Complex stages operas, plays, ballets, and concerts.

Important museums and libraries in Cape Town include the South African Museum (1825), the South African National Gallery (1871), and the South African Library (1818).

The Michaelis Collection (1914) houses 16th-century to 18th-century Dutch and Flemish paintings.

The South African Cultural History Museum (1966), housed in a former slave lodge, also manages several smaller museums.