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Know your nation: do you know how Table Mountain got its name?

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Table Mountain is the well-known flat-topped mountain that overlooks the city of Cape Town. The unique summit is Cape Town’s most recognisable landmark. It was given its name in 1503 by Antonio de Saldanha, the first European explorer to make landfall in Table Bay.

The plateau of Table Mountain is 3km across and is flanked by Devil’s Peak and Lion’s Head, two other mountainous formations.

Plans were first discussed to build a railway track across the mountain more than a hundred years ago, but these were put on hold when the Boer War started in 1899.

The plans were resurrected in 1912, when the Cape Town City Council hired an engineer to investigate the best way to gain access to the top of the mountain.

He suggested a railway running through the Platteklip gorge, but once again the outbreak of war (this time World War 1) put the project on hold.

It was only in 1926 that the project was revisited, and this time a plan for a cableway was put forward and agreed upon. A group of local businessmen formed the Table Mountain Aerial Company to finance the building of the cableway and the project was completed in 1929. Since that time over 16 million people have travelled to the top of Table Mountain by cable car.

Table Mountain is a major tourist attraction for Cape Town and in 1998 the Cape Peninsula National Park became the Table Mountain National Park in an effort to protect the mountain’s natural environment and its collection of rare flowers and animal life.

These include the Mountain Zebra, Cape Leopard and the family of Protea, one of the most unique flowers in the world.

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