Cape Town's population nears 5 million, but is it really set to overtake Joburg?
Mike Wills talks to demography specialist Prof. Tom Moultrie (UCT) about a recent statement by Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis.
Cape Town panorama. Wikimedia Commons/Raita Futo
It's clear that Cape Town's population is booming, but is it really set to become South Africa's most populous city as Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis says?
In a recent statement, the Mayor reported that the Mother City's population is about to cross the 5 million mark.
Hill-Lewis was making a call ahead of the mini budget for Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana to put a stop to what he called anti-poor budget cuts for municipalities and provinces.
Mike Wills talks to Tom Moultrie, Professor of Demography at UCT and director of its Centre for Actuarial Research.
Professor Moultrie says he has to concur with the Mayor on the estimated population figure for the Mother City, but casts doubt on predicting it will overtake Johannesburg.
Cape Town is defined by its metropolitan boundaries, reaching as far as Somerset West and up the West Coast, he clarifies.
"The next district municipality is the Cape Winelands, which includes Stellenbosch and Paarl for example."
"The estimate is probably very close to 5 million, as of the middle of this year."
"Unlike for a whole lot of other metros, Stats SA's own population estimates from 2022 are incredibly close to the census numbers for 2022 so I do think the answer is certainly close to around 5 million."
Prof. Tom Moultrie, Director - Centre for Actuarial Research at UCT
Johannesburg falls into that group where the situation is less clear in terms of the available and also conflicting statistics, Prof. Moultrie says.
Somewhat surprisingly, he goes on, the census showed that the population was 4.8 million in 2022 but Stats SA's own estimates put it at 5.6 million.
They haven't yet got a handle on this disjuncture yet, 'but if if I was the municipal manager in Joburg I'd be very worried'.
"That's another 800 000 more or 16% higher than the census... and for mid-2024 they said it was 5.8 million, so on those numbers Cape Town is still quite some distance away from being as populous as Johannesburg."
"One of the issues we're trying to make sense of is how the population of Joburg seems to be much smaller than we anticipated; there might be moves from the those metropolitan areas to Ekurhuleni or Tshwane, for example."
Prof. Tom Moultrie, Director - Centre for Actuarial Research at UCT
For more from Prof. Moultrie, listen to the interview audio at the top of the article