Macassar, Western Cape

Province

Macassar is a district of the South African city of Cape Town with 33.225 inhabitants ( 2011). It is located in the southeast of Cape Town, near the False Bay. To the west lies Khayelitsha, east of the city districts of Somerset West and beach.

Macassar is inhabited mainly by coloreds. Its inhabitants formerly worked mainly in fishing and boat building. The Macassar Dunes Nature Reserve in the Baden Powell Drive near the district is part of the coastal dune system, which is important for the biodiversity of the Western Cape.

The Kramat ( the shrine ) by Shaykh Yusuf of Makassar in Indonesia today is one of the holy sites of the South African Muslim community. The exiled in 1694 by the Dutch to Cape Town Sheikh found there his last place of residence and named it after his birthplace Macassar.