Bo-Kaap, Historical Muslim district in central Cape Town, South Africa

Bo-Kaap lies on the slopes of Signal Hill between the city centre and Buitengracht Street, about a kilometre from Cape Town station. Its rows of attached flat-roofed houses have smooth plastered facades in pink, yellow and orange-red, with white cornice bands and barred windows; a low orange-red wall with white balusters runs in front of some. The street plan mixes Cape Dutch and Edwardian building styles.

Jan de Waal bought land at the foot of Signal Hill in 1760 and from 1763 built rental houses there. The first Auwal Mosque was founded in Dorp Street in 1794, and the Tana Baru Cemetery opened in 1804. In 1886 authorities ordered the cemetery closed; thousands of residents resisted, an action seen as the Cape Malay community's most important protest against the authorities.

The name Bo-Kaap means "above the Cape" in Afrikaans, and the area was long called the Malay Quarter or Slamsebuurt. In the 1820s Muslim clerics here produced some of the first written Afrikaans, set down in Arabic script. Ten mosques serve the neighbourhood, among them the Auwal Mosque of 1794 in Dorp Street, South Africa's first, and the Nurul Islam Mosque of 1844.

The quarter lies between Buitengracht Street (the M62) and the slope of Signal Hill, about a kilometre from Cape Town station, with De Waterkant to the north. Streets are narrow, steep and cobbled, so walking is easier than driving. Many houses are private homes; ask before photographing doorways and facades. The Bo-Kaap Museum occupies the 1760s house at 71 Wale Street.

The Auwal Mosque on Dorp Street, built in 1794, is South Africa's first mosque. Tuan Guru, a political exile from Tidore, wrote a Quran manuscript from memory after his release from Robben Island, where he had been held for 13 years. The mosque also holds his grave and remains the centre of Cape Malay religious life.