The Dutch and other Europeans
With the establishment of the refreshment station in 1652 the first European settlers arrived at the Cape.  In 1688 the first French Huguenot refugees arrived and in 1795 the first British occupation of the Cape began and in 1820 large scale settlement of British immigrants began in the East Cape.

The Black Africans
Historians cannot agree on the origins or naming of the Bantu speaking people of Southern Africa but it is thought that they originated in the Niger and Congo deltas and had become established in the Transkei by 700AD.  The Black population of the Cape stayed low through government engineering until the 1980s when large scale migration from the rural areas could no longer be controlled.

Cape 'Coloured'
Descendants of Europeans, Malays, Free-blacks, Slaves and Khoisan.

The San
Called 'Bushmen' by the Dutch, they were hunter-gatherers and the first inhabitants of South Africa.  They were short, less than 1.5m, with golden/brown skin, high cheekbones and distinctive flat facial features.  Their Rock Art dates from 20 000 years ago.

The Khoikhoi
Pastoralists, called 'Hottentots' - probably lived in northern Botswana 2000 years ago and migrated to the Cape where they met the San - making it difficult to distinguish two separate groups.  Hence the name Khoisan.

The Khoisan were persecuted by the European settlers but their virtual extermination was brought about by the Smallpox epidemics of 1713, 1753 and 1767.

It is difficult to estimate the present population of the greater Cape Town accurately, but it is probably made up of approximately 1 million 'white', 1.5 million 'coloured' and 2 million 'black' people, each of whom bring colour to this 'rainbow city'.