Data, safety scores and local guides for Cape Town and South Africa.
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These rules come from five years of police figures for all 63 police station areas in Cape Town and from about 1,300 news reports on crime in the city, collected for our crime reports.
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The thefts recorded at the V&A Waterfront and the harbour in a year, against eight robberies, which makes an unattended bag the main risk there.
WhyThe share of Cape Town's murders recorded in ten police station areas on the Cape Flats, so go with a local guide or an established operator.
WhyPeople posing as Uber drivers approach travellers inside and outside the terminal. Never take a ride offered in person: book in the app, go to the Ride-App Pick-Up Area in the parkade, check the registration against the app and check the amount and currency before you tap your card.
WhySANParks advises walking in groups of four or more, and most of the hikers robbed on the mountain since 2023 were alone or in pairs.
WhyEvery Signal Hill robbery with a reported time happened from late afternoon on, so for the sunset it is better to drive up to the viewpoint than to walk the lower paths.
WhyThe time at which two tourists and their guide were robbed on Lion's Head in October 2026. Start the descent while there are still other people on the path.
WhyThree of the eight attacks on drivers reported since 2023 happened at the Jakes Gerwel Drive interchange or on Borcherds Quarry Road.
WhyA driver who pulled over on Borcherds Quarry Road in December 2025 was robbed within five minutes of stopping.
WhyFour of the eight attacks on drivers reported on the airport road since 2023 were smash-and-grabs through a car window.
WhyThe robberies the police recorded in the city centre in the twelve months to June 2026, which works out at about five a day.
WhyThe car crimes recorded in Sea Point in the twelve months to June 2026, up from 880 the year before.
WhySources: SAPS crime statistics for the 12 months to June 2026, SANParks, and news reports collected for our crime reports, January 2023 to October 2026. Fake Uber drivers: Cape Argus, 10 and 12 July 2026, quoting Uber South Africa and Airports Company South Africa.
Each report covers the police stations of one part of Cape Town: what kind of crime is recorded there, how it compares with the whole city and whether it is getting better. Select a district to open its report.
Hout Bay
Camps Bay & Clifton
Atlantic Seaboard
Peninsula Hiking Trails
City Bowl
Woodstock
Muizenberg
Table View
Milnerton
N2 Airport Route
Stellenbosch
From the Table Mountain cableway to Boulders Beach and the Stellenbosch wine farms, with the best months, what to allow and how to stay safe at each one.
A new track leads every day. Press play, then swipe for the rest.
Each card is a neighbourhood. Its score is the Ward Safety Index of the City electoral ward it lies in, or a weighted average where it spans more than one; the card names each ward and the other suburbs it covers. Scores and sub-scores run 0 to 10, higher is safer. A new set every day, in alphabetical order.
Atlantic Seaboard
Score of one ward · Ward Safety Index
Photo: SkyPixels · CC BY-SA 4.0
City Bowl
Score of one ward · Ward Safety Index
Photo: JeremyChallis · CC BY-SA 4.0
Southern Suburbs
Score of one ward · Ward Safety Index
Photo: Martinvl · CC BY-SA 4.0
South Peninsula
Score of one ward · Ward Safety Index
Photo: Diego Delso · CC BY-SA 4.0
False Bay
Score of one ward · Ward Safety Index
Photo: Nina R from Africa · CC BY 2.0
Southern Suburbs
Score of one ward · Ward Safety Index
Photo: rebekahn · CC BY-SA 3.0
City Bowl
Score of one ward · Ward Safety Index
Photo: Hilton Teper · CC BY-SA 3.0
Woodstock & East
Average of 2 wards · Ward Safety Index
Pillar scores describe what kind of crime is the problem in an area; they are analyst decompositions of the ward score, not independent measurements.
Source: Ward research, SAPS station statistics, GI-TOC Gang Monitor · Last refreshed 2026-09
Photo: Louis Oelofse · CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Aqib Kazi · CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Cal Quinn · CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Jokromberg · CC BY-SA 4.0
70 charts across 11 topics, every one with a source
53minutes Tue 16:00 · Highest
Select a cell to inspect its value.
The slowest time of the week is a weekday afternoon. The drive then takes more than twice as long as at a quiet hour.
Source: Cape Town Data (Google Maps drive-time sampling) · 10 Mar 2026 – 30 Mar 2026 · Light is low, dark is high: 14.9 to 53 minutes
53% Hout Bay · Highest
Select a bubble to inspect its values.
The districts where the police record the most crime are not the ones with the highest share of violent crime.
Source: South African Police Service, via our district crime reports · Left to right: Crimes recorded by the police in 12 months. Bottom to top: Share of those crimes that are violent (%). Bubble area: Total crimes recorded by the police. The horizontal scale is stretched at the low end so small numbers are easier to see
18.73R ▲ +0.05 · +0.3 % · since 10 Aug
Select a point to inspect its value.
Over the last twelve weeks the rand has stayed in a narrow range against the euro too.
Source: Open Exchange Rates · The scale runs from 18 to 19, not from zero
70.3minutes 07:00 · Highest
Select a point to inspect its value.
Early in the morning the drive into the city takes more than twice as long as at quiet times.
Source: Cape Town Data (Google Maps drive-time sampling) · The scale runs from zero to 100
69days seen Piketberg (4 km) · Highest
Select a bar to inspect its value.
These places show up again and again. They are often factories or farm burning rather than wildfires. The one near Piketberg shows up most often.
Source: NASA FIRMS (VIIRS 375 m) · All bars start at zero
43mm Wed 21 Oct · Highest
Select a point to inspect its value.
Most of the rain in these two weeks fell on just a few days. The other days were dry.
Source: South African Weather Service · The scale runs from zero to 60
19starred restaurants Stellenbosch and Franschhoek · Highest
Select a bar to inspect its value.
Stellenbosch and Franschhoek together outrank every city district, and Gauteng holds only five stars in total.
Source: Eat Out · All bars start at zero
306,000applications April 2024 · Highest
Select a bar to inspect its value.
The queue fell from 306,000 applications to roughly 18,000, and was declared eradicated in early 2025.
Source: Department of Home Affairs · All bars start at zero
96% Wemmershoek · Highest
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The smaller dams close to the city got the most rain, so some dams filled much more than others.
Source: City of Cape Town · All bars start at zero
11% Cape Town · Highest
Select a bar to inspect its value.
Cape Town is not only the most expensive big city. Its prices are also rising faster than in the other big cities shown.
Source: Statistics South Africa · All bars start at zero
1,096MW All other Cape Town demand · Highest
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Together they would need 580 MW, which is 34% of the city’s current peak. The biggest, Cavaleros at 360 MW, would be the largest data centre ever built in South Africa.
Source: City of Cape Town, Cavaleros Group, Equinix and Teraco · All bars start at zero
67% Western Cape · Highest
Select a bar to inspect its value.
67% of Western Cape municipalities got a clean audit. That is more than four times the national rate of 15%.
Source: Auditor-General of South Africa · All bars start at zero
8,278recorded crimes City Bowl · Highest
Select a chart to inspect its values.
Each shape shows which crimes are most common in one district. The shapes show the mix, not how much crime there is. City Bowl has the most recorded crime overall.
Source: South African Police Service, via our district crime reports · Each shape is sized to its own district, so compare the shapes, not the sizes
Source: Is it safe to stay in Somerset West, Western Cape? · Updated 27 Oct 2026
Source: SANParks (18 Dec 2025); capetowndata.com 2026 incident log (Jan to Jun 2026); IOL (17 May); Cape {town} Etc (31 Jul); c… · Updated 22 Oct 2026
Source: What are the Biggest Events in Cape Town in 2027? The Month-by-Month Guide · Updated 15 Oct 2026
Source: City of Cape Town weekly dam readings · Updated 15 Oct 2026
Source: SARS duty-free allowances for travellers · Updated 15 Oct 2026
Source: GroundUp and News24 (January 2024); Cape {town} Etc (November 2023); Jacaranda FM (August 2025); 2oceansvibe (October 2… · Updated 9 Oct 2026
Learn South African history through these culturally significant moments.
Read about the food people in Cape Town cook at home, buy on the street and make for Eid, Good Friday and the braai, and where it all comes from.
Abraham Perold crossed Pinot Noir with Cinsaut at Stellenbosch in 1924, and South Africa's own red grape is now made light and fruity or rich and oaked.
Where it comes fromPhoto: Doris Schneider, Julius Kühn-Institut (JKI), Federal Research Centre for Cultivated Plants, Institute for Grapevine Breeding Geilweilerhof - 76833 Siebeldingen, GERMANY, CC BY-SA 4.0
Premier of the Western Cape since 2019 (Democratic Alliance)
Read the article
Photo: Democratic Alliance staff photographer · CC BY-SA 3.0 ZA
Johannesburg-born pop star; 'Water' won the first Grammy for Best African Music Performance in 2024
Read the article
Photo: Capital FM Kenya · CC BY 3.0
Pan Africanist Congress activist who led the 1960 march on Cape Town, 1936 to 2017
Read the article
Singer and civil-rights campaigner, 1932 to 2008; the voice of 'Pata Pata'
View profile
Photo: Rob Mieremet / Anefo, Nationaal Archief · Public domain
President of South Africa since 2018; former trade unionist and businessman
View profile
Photo: ITU Pictures · CC BY 2.0
Anti-apartheid leader and first democratically elected president, 1918 to 2013
Read the article
Photo: South Africa The Good News · CC BY 2.0
Plain answers from the police's own figures for each part of Cape Town: what kind of crime, how it compares with the whole city, and whether it is getting better.
Find your area →Source: SAPS quarterly crime statistics and Census 2022
Amapiano, Cape Jazz, Kwaito and other South African sounds.
Did you know?Language & Slang
Lekker is Afrikaans and Dutch for delicious, and it now covers anything good. The Dictionary of South African English dates its first English citation to 1847, about hippo hoof.
South Africa · 1847 Read the story
Did you know?History
The Afrikaans Language Museum in Paarl counts 74 identified Arabic Afrikaans works written between 1845 and 1957, from student notebooks to voting posters, and calls Arabic Afrikaans the form generally accepted as the first written Afrikaans.
Bo-Kaap · 1845 Read the story
Did you know?Language & Slang
The Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures says Afrikaans arose from the colloquial Cape Dutch of Dutch settlers under the influence of Khoekhoe, South African Portuguese Creole and South African Malay. How exactly it happened is still argued about.
Cape Town Read the story
Did you know?Sport
The Cape Town Cycle Tour began in 1978 as The Big Ride In, a protest for safer cycling paths organised by Bill Mylrea and John Stegmann. The organisers call it the largest timed cycling event in the world.
Cape Town · 1978 Read the story
Did you know?Language & Slang
The Kaaps Woordeboek, the first trilingual dictionary of the Cape Flats language Kaaps, was launched at the Castle of Good Hope on 23 April 2026. The UWC linguist Quentin Williams compiled it.
Cape Flats · 2026 Read the story
Did you know?Language & Slang
In Cape Town the gaartjie, also written gaatjie or guardjie, is the crew member on a minibus taxi who calls the destination, works the door and takes the fares.
Cape Town Read the story
Did you know?Traditions
Cape Town's Second New Year falls on 2 January. The tradition ties it to the one day off enslaved people at the Cape were given, once New Year's Day, which belonged to their owners, was over.
Cape Town Read the story
Did you know?Transport
Amaphela are shared sedan taxis working inside Gugulethu, Nyanga, Crossroads and Philippi. GroundUp reported that the name means cockroaches and put the minimum fare at R8 in January 2020.
Gugulethu Read the story
Did you know?Music
Abdullah Ibrahim recorded "Mannenberg" in Cape Town in June 1974 with Basil Coetzee, Robbie Jansen, Morris Goldberg and Monty Weber, produced by Rashid Vally for the As-Shams label.
Manenberg · 1974 Read the story
Did you know?Food
By his own account, in 1976 Rashaad Pandy of Super Fisheries in Athlone filled a round Portuguese loaf with chips, polony and atchar for four workers, and one of them called it a Gatsby smash.
Super Fisheries · 1976 Read the story
Did you know?History
Abu Bakr Effendi's Bayan al-Din was printed in Istanbul in 1877: Hanafi religious law set out in the Afrikaans his Cape students spoke, written throughout in modified Arabic script.
Cape Town · 1877 Read the story
Did you know?Music
Abdullah Ibrahim's 1974 tune is spelt with three n's. The Cape Flats township it is named for has two. The published accounts explain the song, but not the extra letter.
Manenberg · 1974 Read the story
Follow wildfires, water, load shedding, crime, the cost of living and transport in Cape Town as they change over time.
How years of rolling blackouts stopped, what actually changed on the grid, and what drives demand now.
What SAPS statistics, ward data and our own district reports show about where Cape Town is safe and where it is not.
The tricks that actually target visitors, and the places where they happen most often.
The road from the airport into the city, tracked update by update since 2025.
A decade of Sea Point prices, the short-term rental bylaw and what it now takes to live in Cape Town.
Water, fire, energy, housing, crime and transport: where Cape Town actually stands this year, one article per challenge.
The worst fire season in a decade, from the first January flare-ups to the count of what burned.
Years after Day Zero: what the dam levels, the rainfall and the driest July since 1958 actually say.
Which beach is sheltered right now? Check live wind readings for the peninsula's beaches.
Check todayCurrent stage, schedules, and historical trends for Cape Town and other SA cities.
ViewA free safety index for every ward in the city, researched by our editors from the listed sources. It is separate from the source-linked district crime reports and official SAPS station counts.
N2 Highway · Typical for this hour, from 21 days of readings
Property market data for Cape Town. Inflation-adjusted prices and trends.
ViewShips rounding the Cape of Good Hope over one recorded day, 23 to 24 August 2026, replayed from AIS signals. Cape route traffic has nearly doubled since ships began avoiding the Red Sea.
Every Cape Town dataset we publish: energy, water, safety, nature and more.
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