Western Cape
The Western Cape is a province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is geographically the fourth largest of the country's nine provinces, with an area of, and the third most populous, with an estimated 7.43 million inhabitants in 2022.
About two-thirds of the province's residents live in the metropolitan area of Cape Town, which is also the provincial capital, and South Africa's second-largest city. The Western Cape was created in 1994 from part of the former Cape Province. The two largest cities are Cape Town and George.
The Western Cape is generally regarded as the best-run of South Africa's provinces, with a robust system of governance, proactive administration, high quality infrastructure, and strong political and civil accountability. The province also has South Africa's lowest unemployment rate, by a significant margin.
Furthermore, the Western Cape has South Africa's highest secondary education graduation rate. In the 2024 Governance Performance Index, the Western Cape achieved the highest scores across all categories, by a large degree.
Cape Town, the capital of the Western Cape, has the country's highest household incomes, lowest rate of unemployment, highest level of infrastructure investment, strongest service delivery performance, largest tourism appeal, and most robust real estate market.
Geography
The Western Cape is roughly L-shaped, extending north and east from the Cape of Good Hope, in the southwestern corner of South Africa. It stretches about northwards along the Atlantic coast and about eastwards along the South African south coast. It is bordered on the north by the Northern Cape and on the east by the Eastern Cape.The total land area of the province is, about 10.6% of the country's total. It is roughly the size of England or the State of Louisiana. Its capital city and largest city is Cape Town, and some other major cities include Stellenbosch, Worcester, Paarl, and George. The Garden Route and the Overberg are popular coastal tourism areas.
The Western Cape is the southernmost region of the African continent with Cape Agulhas as its southernmost point, only from the Antarctic coastline. The coastline varies from sandy between capes, to rocky to steep and mountainous in places. The only natural harbour is Saldanha Bay on the west coast, about north of Cape Town. However a lack of fresh water in the region meant that it has only recently been used as a harbour.
The province's main harbour was built in Table Bay, which in its natural state was fully exposed to the northwesterly storms that bring rain to the province in winter, as well as the almost uninterrupted dry southeasterly winds in summer. But fresh water coming off Table Mountain and Devil's Peak allowed the early European settlers to build Cape Town on the shores of this less than satisfactory anchorage.
Topography
The province is topographically exceptionally diverse. Most of the province falls within the Cape Fold Belt, a set of nearly parallel ranges of sandstone folded mountains of Cambrian-Ordovician age.The height of the mountain peaks in the different ranges varies from to. The valleys between ranges are generally very fertile, as they contain the weathered loamy soils of the Bokkeveld mudstones.
The far interior forms part of the Karoo. This region of the province is generally arid and hilly, with a prominent escarpment that runs close to the Province's most inland boundary.
Escarpment
The escarpment marks the southwestern edge of South Africa's central plateau. It runs parallel to the entire South African coastline, except in the very far northeast, where it is interrupted by the Limpopo River valley, and in the far northwest, where it is interrupted by the Orange River valley. The northeastern stretch of the escarpment is called the Drakensberg, which is geographically and geologically quite distinct from the Cape Fold Mountains, which originated much earlier and totally independently of the origin of the escarpment.Rivers
The principal rivers of the province are the Berg and Olifants which drain into the Atlantic Ocean, and the Breede and Gourits which drain into the Indian Ocean.Flora
The vegetation of the region is also extremely diverse, with one of the world's six floral kingdoms almost exclusively endemic to the province, namely the Cape Floral Kingdom, most of which is covered by Fynbos.These evergreen heathlands are extremely rich in species diversity, with at least as many plant species occurring on Table Mountain as in the entire United Kingdom. It is characterised by various types of shrubs, thousands of herbaceous flowering plant species and some grasses. With the exception of the Silver tree, Leucadendron argenteum, which only grows on the granite and clay soils of the Cape Peninsula, open fynbos is generally treeless except in the wetter mountain ravines where patches of Afromontane forest persist.
The arid interior is dominated by Karoo drought-resistant shrubbery. The West Coast and Little Karoo are semi-arid regions and are typified by many species of succulents and drought-resistant shrubs and acacia trees.
The Garden Route on the south coast is extremely lush, with temperate rainforest covering many areas adjacent to the coast, in the deep river valleys and along the southern slopes of the Outeniqua mountain range. Typical species are hardwoods of exceptional height, such as Yellowwood, Stinkwood and Ironwood trees.
Climate
The Western Cape is climatologically diverse, with many distinct micro- and macroclimates created by the varied topography and the influence of the surrounding ocean currents. These are the warm Agulhas Current which flows southwards along South Africa's east coast, and the cold Benguela Current which is an upwelling current from the depths of the South Atlantic Ocean along South Africa's west coast.Thus, climatic statistics can vary greatly over short distances. Most of the province is considered to have a Mediterranean climate with cool, wet winters and warm, dry summers.
Both the Great Karoo and Little Karoo, in the interior, have an arid to semi-arid climate with cold, frosty winters and hot summers with occasional thunderstorms. The Garden Route and the Overberg on the south coast have a maritime climate with cool, moist winters and mild, moist summers. Mossel Bay in the Garden Route is considered to have the second mildest climate worldwide after Hawaii. The La Niña phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation cycle tends to increase rainfall in this region in the dry season.
The effects of El Niño on rainfall in southern Africa differ between the summer and winter rainfall areas. Winter rainfall areas tend to get higher rainfall than normal and summer rainfall areas tend to get less rain. The effect on the summer rainfall areas is stronger and has led to severe drought in strong El Niño events.
Sea surface temperatures off the west and south coasts of South Africa are affected by ENSO via changes in surface wind strength. During El Niño the south-easterly winds driving upwelling are weaker which results in warmer coastal waters than normal, while during La Niña the same winds are stronger and cause colder coastal waters.
These effects on the winds are part of large scale influences on the tropical Atlantic and the South Atlantic High-pressure system, and changes to the pattern of westerly winds further south. There are other influences not known to be related to ENSO of similar importance. Some ENSO events do not lead to the expected changes.
Thunderstorms are generally rare in the province with most precipitation being of a frontal or orographic nature. Extremes of heat and cold are common inland, but rare near the coast. Snow is a common winter occurrence on the Western Cape Mountains occasionally reaching down into the more inland valleys. Otherwise, frost is relatively rare in coastal areas and many of the heavily cultivated valleys.
Political history
Cape Liberal Tradition
The Cape has had a long tradition of holding liberal values. For example, the Cape Qualified Franchise before the Union of South Africa.Cape Qualified Franchise
The Cape Qualified Franchise was the system of non-racial franchise that was adhered to in the Cape Colony, and in the Cape Province in the early years of the Union of South Africa. Qualifications for the right to vote at parliamentary elections were applied equally to all men, regardless of race.This local system of multi-racial suffrage was later gradually restricted, and eventually abolished, under various National Party and United Party governments. In 1930, white women were enfranchised, and in 1931 property qualifications for white voters were removed.
In 1936, black voters were then removed from the common voters' rolls and allowed only to elect separate members in 1936, and subsequently denied all representation in the House of Assembly in 1960. Coloured voters similarly followed in 1958 and 1970, respectively.
Contribution of the Western Cape in the National Youth Uprisings
The Black Consciousness Movement was a grassroots anti-Apartheid activist movement that emerged in South Africa in the mid-1960s out of the political vacuum created by the jailing and banning of the African National Congress and Pan Africanist Congress leadership after the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960. The BCM represented a social movement for political consciousness.In December 1968, the South African Student Organization was formed at a conference held in Marianhill, Natal. The conference was exclusively attended by Black students. After its launch, SASO became the medium through which black consciousness ideology spread to schools and other university campuses across the country.
In 1974, South African Minister of Bantu Education and Development MC Botha, constituted the imposition of using Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in black schools, effective with students in Grade 7 upwards. As early as March 1976, students began passive resistance against Afrikaans, fueling the outbreak of the Soweto Uprising on 16 June 1976. Consequently, the student protests spread to other parts of the country, and Cape Town became a pivotal site for Western Cape student revolt.
Student leaders at the University of the Western Cape and the University of Cape Town organised marches. Poster parades by UWC and Black Power Salute marches by UCT was broken by the police, resulting in 73 students getting arrested and detained at Victor Verster Prison, near Paarl.
On 1 September 1976, the unrest spread to the city of Cape Town itself. Approximately 2000 black students from Western Cape townships, namely Langa, Nyanga and Gugulethu, matched the Cape Town central business district. Coloured students also contributed to the protests by peacefully marching to the city, but were blockaded by the police in the CBD. The protests turned violent when coloured students started burning schools, libraries and a magistrate's court in support of the student revolt. Thereafter, 200,000 coloured workers partook in a two-day strike staying away from work in the Cape Town area.
According to a report by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the Western Cape experienced the second highest number of deaths and casualties associated with the 1976 uprising protests.