According to historical documents, the first explorer to discover the Cape was Portuguese navigator, Bartholomeus Dias, who rounded Cape Point during a dreadful storm in 1488. He subsequently named it the Cape of Storms, later to be renamed Cape of Good Hope ("Cabo de Boa Esperanza"). On a second voyage a few years later Dias died when his ship foundered while attempting to round the Cape. Monuments to both Dias and a later explorer, Vasco da Gama - in the form of navigational beacons - have been erected in this part of the National Park.

The Dutch were the first to settle in the area. The Dutch East India Company in 1652 under pressure from their ships’ officers established a supply post at Table Bay under the command of Jan Antony van Riebeeck. His mission was to build a stronghold, grow vegetables, barter for livestock, build a hospital and a sanctuary for the repair of ships. His first mud fort was Cape Town’s first building. It was subsequently replaced by the existing stone Castle of Good Hope. The Cape became an outstation for the Dutch East India Company’s eastern empire under the control of the Governor-General of the Indies and remained so until the end of the Company period in 1795.

In 1780-1783 there was war between Britain and Holland. A British fleet moved to take possession of the Cape but was prevented from doing so by the French who then landed two regiments to assist the Dutch in defence of the Cape Colony. However in 1795 when revolutionary armies of France invaded Holland William of Orange escaped to England and handed over the Cape for protection against the French. The British force destined for the Cape battled at Muizenberg and then took charge. In 1814 the colony was formally ceded to Britain.

Following the formation of the modern South Africa in 1910, Cape Town became, and remains, the nation’s Legislature. The iniquitous apartheid laws drafted in that Parliament limited black migration to the city and divided white people and ‘coloured’ people (those of mixed racial descent). The mountain slopes became leafy ‘white suburbs’ while the townships on the sandy plain were variously designated ‘coloured’ and ‘black’. The racial division of suburbs ended in 1990, but racial and socio-economic differences between areas remain marked. A huge migration of black people followed the easing of racial laws, and the city has grown vastly in the last decade and is now one third Xhosa (Mr Mandela’s tribal group).