what is the main language spoken in cape town
Cape Town According to the South African National Census of 2011, the population of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality – an area that includes suburbs and exurbs not always considered as part of Cape Town – is 3,740,026 people. This represents an annual growth rate of 2.6% compared to the results of the previous census in 2001 which found a population of 2,892,243 people.[54] :54 The sex ratio is 96, meaning that there are slightly more women than men.[54]:55 45.4% of the population described themselves as "Coloured", 42.7% as "White", 8.6% as "Black African", and 1.4% as "Indian or Asian".[54]:56–59 In 1944, 47% of the city's population was White, 46% was Coloured, less than 6% was Black African and 1% was Asian.[55] Of those residents who were asked about their first language, 35.7% spoke Afrikaans, 29.8% spoke Xhosa and 28.4% spoke English. 24.8% of the population is under the age of 15, while 5.5% is 65 or older.[54]:64
History of Cape Town The area fell out of regular contact with Europeans until 1652, when Jan van Riebeeck and other employees of the Dutch East India Company (Dutch: Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, or simply VOC) were sent to the Cape to establish a halfway station to provide fresh water, vegetables, and meat for passing ships travelling to and from Asia. Van Riebeeck's party of three vessels landed at the cape on 6 April 1652. The Cape was under Dutch rule from 1652 to 1695 and again from 1803 to 1806[10]. The group quickly erected shelters and laid out vegetable gardens and orchards, and are preserved in the Company Gardens. Water from the Fresh River, which descended from Table Mountain, was channelled into canals to provide irrigation. The settlers bartered with the native Khoisan for their sheep and cattle. Forests in Hout Bay and the southern and eastern flanks of Table Mountain provided timber for ships and houses. At this point, the VOC had a monopoly on trade and prohibited any private trade. The Dutch gave their own names to the native inhabitants that they encountered, calling the pastoralists "Hottentots", those that lived on the coast and subsisted on shellfishing "Strandlopers", and those who were hunter-gatherers were named "Bushmen".