Cape Town Data
Short facts about Cape Town's language, food, music, traditions and places, including its stranger details.
Did you know?Traditions
AFP described performers at the January 2026 parade in bright satin costumes, many twirling umbrellas and tossing walking sticks, accompanied by brass bands, goema drummers and banjos. Martin records that troupes have competed on costume since the nineteenth century.
Cape Town Read the story
Did you know?Traditions
Martin records that Afrikaans moppies, comic songs built on the ghoema beat, were introduced into the carnival competitions in 1949, and that nederlandsliedjies became a full item in the Malay choir competitions around 1957.
Cape Town · 1949 Read the story
Did you know?Traditions
The City of Cape Town announced the 2026 Cape Town Street Parade for Monday 5 January, with approximately 20,000 performers on a route from Chiappini Street along Somerset Road into the stadium. AFP reported around 17 troupes taking part.
Cape Town · 2026 Read the story
Did you know?Traditions
Martin records that the first Grand New Year Coloured Carnival was held at the Green Point Track on Tuesday 1 January 1907. The Cape Times reported seven troupes and close to 7,000 spectators, with about two thousand of them white.
Cape Town · 1907 Read the story
Did you know?Traditions
Martin records that the Green Point Track was closed to the troupes in 1968 after Green Point was declared white, that marches in central Cape Town were banned in 1976 under the Riotous Assemblies Act, and that the 2 January parades were suspended from 1977 until 1989.
Cape Town · 1977 Read the story
Did you know?Traditions
Visiting American minstrel companies brought blackface minstrelsy to Cape Town in 1862, and local performers adapted the style into what became the Kaapse Klopse. Which troupe came first is not settled.
Cape Town · 1862 Read the story
Did you know?Traditions
The troupes are the Kaapse Klopse. The City of Cape Town calls the event the Cape Town Street Parade, or Tweede Nuwe Jaar Parade. The older name, built on a racial slur, is now widely considered offensive.
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
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