Bo-Kaap
Bo-Kaap is a historic residential neighbourhood on the slopes of Signal Hill in Cape Town, South Africa. Brightly painted houses line cobblestoned streets, creating a vivid setting shaped by Cape Malay culture and a long multicultural history.
Jan de Waal built rental houses here in the 1760s, while Muslim communities from Southeast Asia, Java and Ceylon established lasting roots. Auwal Mosque dates from 1794, and Nurul Islam Mosque followed in 1844. The neighbourhood holds South Africa’s largest concentration of architecture built before 1850, including Cape Dutch and Cape Georgian homes. Nineteen sites gained National Heritage status in 2019, supporting the preservation of its social and cultural traditions.
The Bo-Kaap Museum occupies the area’s oldest building, dating from the 1760s. Its curving Baroque parapet, distinctive boenonder door and nineteenth-century furnishings reveal the life of a prosperous Cape Muslim family.
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myTuur is a free city-guide app. Its tours are built from spots, and each spot carries a story that starts when you get there, to read or to listen to as you like.