For a while I've been thinking that there are a lot of similarities between Vancouver and Cape Town. The most obvious similarities are that both cities are on the West Coast, near spectacular mountains. Although there are beaches in Vancouver, Cape Town has by far the most beautiful beaches of the two. Oh, and Cape Town's beach sand is MUCH prettier than Vancouver's sand! People in both cities tend to be more laid back than in the rest of the countries. In both cities people enjoy the outdoorsy life.

I've done a comparison below to show some other details of the two cities. Cape Town occupies a larger space and has more people. People in Cape Town are less likely to be able to afford a house than they are in Vancouver.

Summer weather is similar in both cities, although Vancouver has slightly fewer sunlight hours, slightly more rain and a slightly lower temperature. Even though the stats below don't show it, Cape Town really is much warmer than the average of 20 indicates. Daily highs are often in the 30s. Daily highs in Vancouver are mostly in the mid 20s. (Celcius).

The winters are quite different as Vancouver gets much colder and gets a lot more rain than Cape Town (or for that matter, anywhere else in the world!!)

Vancouver is getting ready to host the winter Olimpics in 2010 and Cape Town is getting ready for the Soccer World Cup in 2010.

Vancouver was voted the most liveable city in the world.

According to The International Salary Calculator, the cost of living in Vancouver is 14 % higher than the cost of living in Cape Town.


DISCLAIMER: Please note that most of the data is from 2001. Also, the data has been collected using google, and I cannot vouch for its accuracy. Since the data is from 2001, things like house prices are much lower than they really are today (In both cities)

Marli,

I suspect those temperatures are averages of day and night, and thereby not really useful. The daily average daily maximum temperatures might be more appropriate.

Take another look at your Cape Town City numbers. Something is weird there.

Hi Mr Harry

So since Spring is starting here in O a week or so, are you going to start a new segment of pictures and adventures of Vancouver and BC again for 06.

Hi Harry

I struggled a lot to find any kind of reliable information on Cape Town. It is also very difficult to generalize on anything South African. It was interesting for me to see that averages cannot describe Cape Town at all. You can't describe its weather using averages, you can't describe the financial status of Cape Town using averages. The discrepancy between the rich and the poor is just so extreme that the averages tell you very little about the average Capetownian emigrant.

On the other hand, I think Vancouver is much more reliably described by such a generalization.

If you can give me better numbers for the table, I'll be more than happy to update it.

Those population figures are not correct. I suspect that CT's is the greater Cape Town area (metropole) The equivalent of Vancouver would be in excess of 2 million.
Brad

Hi Brad

The info I got for Cape Town and Vancouver was obtained from Encarta: http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761577389/Cape_Town.html

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761578..._Columbia).html

Marli

Harry,

I've included the average daily high temperatures as well

Livestrong...I don't think so.

The Diary has been rather lonely for a while and I think it should now die a natural death. I have now done it for 9 seasons or 27 months.

Marli,

those average daily highs look good. Thanks.

The square root of 70 square km is less than 8.5km. I think this means that the area that is covered by your definition of Vancouver ( City) is only a fraction of the thing we all understand as "Vancouver" ( which, in my book, would include Surrey, Langley, Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows etc...in short, the area that commutes to Vancouver daily..

I looked on statscan: http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/demo05a.htm
They give the Vancouver Metropolitan population as 2,208.3M in 2005.
They fail, however, to define that metropolitan area.

So I went to the Greater Vancouver Regional District: http://www.gvrd.bc.ca/growth/keyfacts/popest.htm
They say 2,156M and clearly include Surrey and Langley. I assure you that all that is vastly greater than 70 square km. I think that 70 km2 patch of Earth is literally just Vancouver City ( that is, the piece of land west of Boundary Road).

I have some serious dificulty seeing Cape Town as being physically bigger than Vancouver. I have made the effort to go and look on Google Earth....no comparison. The GVRD is considerably bigger than CT. But I agree with the 1700km2. So I think CT is estimated way bigger than it actually is. The GVRD is real builtup area.

Hi Harry

According to the link you've supplied, the population stats are:

Vancouver 583,267 (2005)
GVRD 2,155,880 (2005)

These are roughly the numbers I gave (My data was from 2001).

I specified the size of Vancouver to be 70km^2 and the metropolitain area (which is GVRD) to be 1700km^2.

I am not sure what your problem is with these numbers as your link supports the numbers. The only thing of which I'm not sure is the 70km^2. I am not sure exactly what it refers to.




I was also very surprized by this fact and tend to agree with you. Vancouver does feel much bigger than Cape Town. Does anyone have any reliable information regarding the surface are of Cape Town and the definition of exactly where Cape Town City ends?

Marli

Marli,

I'm not arguing with you about Vancouver. I was trying to make sense of the Vancouver ( Metro or City) numbers. We can now see that , when you say "City" you mean the legal entity Vancouver City [the thing that sent its mayor to Italy for the Olympics]. THAT is the thing that has 583,000 people and is about 8.5x8.5 km in size. So that now all hangs together and makes sense.

HOWEVER, I struggle to match that to "Cape Town City", which is 17.5kmX17.5km= 300km2 in size and has almost 3million people, according to your table. Those numbers do not jive....especially if the Metropolitan area turns out to have fewer people than the City!! [ see your table]

Beyond that obvious weirdness, which I imagine is a typo of some sorts, I am trying to understand whether Bellville or Constantia or Mitchells'Plain or are part of the Metropolitan area, or what....I just don't know. WHAT is the "Cape Town City" and what is "Cape Twn Metroploitan"area? I mean, if Bellville is included, then we probably need to include Abbotsford in Vancouver etc etc etc....

's all!

I seem to be unable to edit my original posting... not sure why?? Anyway, I cannot find the numbers for the city bowl anywhere. I would really appreciate it if someone can find the population size and surface of the City bowl.



The area that is considered Metropolitan is indicated on this map from Wikipedia. As far as I can tell, Bellville is included in the Metropolitan area...

Marli,

I found this: http://www.capetown.gov.za/home/demographics.asp

They give (for 1996):

City of Cape Town 987007
South Peninsula 356730
Blaauwberg 131379
City of Tygerberg 827945
Oostenberg 250845
Helderberg 128959

Total 2682866

I have less success figuring out what these places actually are, but Helderberg starts sounding like The Strand!!