NIE ACTIVITY
GEOGRAPHY Connections
This year-long series is presented in collaboration with the Connecticut Geographic Alliance.
Cape Town,
South Africa
National Flag
By Kailee Donovan
City View: Hallo, and welcome to Cape Town, South Africa!
Cape Town is one of the southernmost cities located on the
African continent. It is the most popular tourist destination not just in
South Africa but on the African continent. It has numerous beaches,
peaks for hiking, and a bustling city center. Cape Town has eleven official
languages but the two most often spoken are English and Afrikaans.
You may wish to visit Simon’s Town to see the penguins, or you may
enjoy walking in the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens. For
those who enjoy extreme sports, winter surf conditions are excellent
for kite-surfing, wind-surfing, board-surfing, and extreme wave surfing.
Common Core State Standards: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.3.1-3.10, 4.1-4.10, 5.1-5.10
Online Resources
Nelson Mandela: http://www.nelsonmandela.org/
Cape Town City Info: http://www.capetown.gov.za/
en/Pages/default.aspx
Visiting South Africa: http://www.forbes.com/sites/
larryolmsted/2013/03/21/cape-town-south-africasjewel-city/
Using the News
South Africa has been in the news quite a bit recently as one of its
most popular leaders, Nelson Mandela, recently died. Mandela was an
important figure in South African history because he was an advocate for
equality between whites and people of color. He helped to end Apartheid,
a policy of racial segregation, in South Africa. He went to prison for 27
years for standing up to the government about the inequality of Apartheid.
After his release from prison, his election to President in 1994 marked
the official end of Apartheid. Several films have been made about his life
and legacy. Use the Courant archive to search the keyword MANDELA to
find out more about his life and legacy.
TAKE 5
LOCATION - Cape Town’s absolute location is 33.97° S,
18.42° E.
PLACE - Most of the urban areas of Cape Town are located
in the “City Bowl” or an area of low land surrounded by
large mountains. This gives the city an amphitheater-type
look. Image of City Bowl: http://www.photoflytravel.org/
images/2011/07/SA-Cape-Town.jpg
HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT INTERACTION - The most
famous landmark in Cape Town is Table Mountain
because of its breathtaking views. The city has built a
cable car, a la Rio, that rotates as it moves giving visitors
spectacular 360° views of the area.
MOVEMENT - South Africa was once a colony of the
Dutch and the British, so there are many people of
European descent that now live in Cape Town.
REGION - The Cape Flats, the plains outside the city
center, used to be a neighborhood reserved for people of
color in South Africa. Today, the Flats are now the most
popular place for any resident of Cape Town to live.
DID YOU KNOW?
• Because Cape Town is in the Southern Hemisphere, they are experiencing cold winters while we have our
summers. This is because when the earth is rotated a certain way it is closer to the northern hemisphere
and nations like the US than it is farther from the southern hemisphere.
• The most popular sports in South Africa are cricket, football (soccer), swimming, and rugby.
• The Robben Island Museum, located off the coast of Cape Town, is like Cape Town’s Alcatraz. Many
famous South Africans, like Nelson Mandela, have been imprisoned there.
Mapping Activity
Cape Town has some very beautiful and unique geography for a city. The peninsula extends like a hook
out into the ocean, the city is surrounded by mountains like Signal Hill, Lion’s Head, Table Mountain, and
Devil’s Peak. Cape Town also has an area of flat land called the Cape Flats. Could you create a 3D model
of Cape Town and label all the different geographic formations on it? Look for a peninsula, mountains,
bays, the ocean, and flats. Take a picture of your model and send it to us! [email protected]
Photos to help you with your model:
Map: http://www.top5africa.com/blogs/sites/default/files/capetown_map.jpg
Map2: http://platinumps.co.za/ContactUs/images/MapOfCapeTown.gif
For students who are blind, learning disabled or print challenged, visit CRIS Radio at
http://www.chrisradio.org and click Kids On-Demand for a free audio version of Geography Connections.