Table Mountain

Where is Table Mountain?

Table Mountain is part of the Cape Fold Mountains.

You will find it in: South Africa.

Summit: 33.962° S, 18.410° E

The story behind it

Table Mountain is made of extremely hard sandstone that has resisted erosion far better than the softer rock around it, which is why it kept its flat top over hundreds of millions of years while everything nearby wore away into lower hills. Some of its rock is more than 500 million years old, among the oldest exposed surfaces anywhere on the planet, far older than most mountains including the Alps and Himalayas. Cape Town grew up directly beneath it, and today a rotating cable car carries hundreds of visitors an hour up to the summit, where you can look down over the whole city and out to Robben Island. A strange local weather show happens often: when moist ocean air rises up the mountain's slope and cools, it forms a rolling white cloud that spills over the flat top like a tablecloth, which locals simply call 'the tablecloth'.

Find it on the globe

Table Mountain is there as a small peak with its own shape — a horn, a ridge, a volcano — standing on the surface. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.

It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.