1001 Smart Cities
🇿🇦 Cape Town

Cape Town Open Data Portal

🤖 AI-generated summary · ◆ 7 sourced claims · 🔎 Last verified

This overview was generated with AI from the public sources listed below and checked against them before publication. It has not had a complete human fact-check — treat it as a starting point and follow the sources.

7 sourced claims on this page, none individually verified yet — turn on “Sources in the text” to see each one.

How this atlas is made · What “last verified” means · What “source-checked” means · The full record behind this page

✎ Corrected 22 Aug 2026 Publication date recorded for 7 sources. What changed →

The city owns its catalogue outright and applies its licence consistently. The licence is a link to a municipal terms page: 200 of 200 sampled records came back custom, no recognised open instrument anywhere.

Outcome🔄 Ongoing
Evidence🏛️ Official
what does this mean?The strongest source is the operator's or the city's own reporting — an official report, dataset or press release. It grades who did the looking — not how well the project went. All four grades →
Run byCity of Cape Town
Scale🏙️ City-wide

Part of 1001 Smart Cities — 1,167 documented projects · 🏙️ 4 more in Cape Town · 📊 Open data guide · 📡 Data & IoT projects

Cape Town runs its own catalogue, and owns it outright: the ArcGIS organisation behind the portal is registered to the City of Cape Town and every dataset is published by a municipal account. Counted through the platform API on 26 July 2026, the portal's three catalogue groups held 256 items, spatial and tabular together — 178 feature services, 25 CSV files, 21 Excel workbooks, 6 PDFs and a scattering of others, plus 18 application templates that are not data. Licensing is where it gets interesting. A Council-approved Open Data Policy exists and has been revised twice, most recently as policy 27781 on 3 December 2020, but it names no licence. It says only that use of the portal will be subject to its Terms of Use, and that those terms will conform with open data principles. Every record inspected carries the same link to that municipal terms page in place of a standard instrument, and in 200 records sampled from the platform index all 200 were classified as a custom licence. No Creative Commons deed, public-domain dedication or other recognised open licence appears anywhere in the catalogue. Cape Town breaks no rule of its own — the rule simply never names the thing a re-user needs to read.

Live 📅 since 2015

📊 Impact

Counted 26 July 2026 via the ArcGIS sharing API: 256 items in the portal's three catalogue groups (178 feature services, 25 CSV, 21 Excel, 18 application templates, 6 PDF, 3 CAD, 2 document links, 1 KML collection, 1 Word, 1 StoryMap). Licence sample: 200 of 200 platform records classified 'custom', i.e. a non-standard licence; a complete per-record census of the 256 could not be obtained because the platform's licence filter and aggregation endpoints return errors. The City's own portal copy still advertises 'over 106 datasets' and a 2015 launch with 29.

🎓 Lesson

A policy that promises terms conforming to open data principles, without naming an instrument, is a self-assessment rather than a grant. Cape Town applies its terms consistently — 200 of 200 records sampled carry the same link — but what is applied is a link to a municipal terms page, not a licence a re-user can read once and rely on.

📡 Data & IoTOpen dataDigital governmentGIS & cadastre

Sources

↗ City of Cape Town Open Data Policy, policy 27781 (authority) archived copyHeader: 'OPEN DATA POLICY (POLICY NUMBER 27781) REVISED AND APPROVED BY COUNCIL: 03 DECEMBER 2020 VIDE ITEM C20/12/20', version 3, previous review 26 May 2016. Licensing clause in full: 'The use of the Open Data Portal will be subject to its Terms of Use. The Terms of Use will conform with open data principles.' No licence named. PDF would not parse directly; text extracted through a rendering proxy.
↗ City of Cape Town Open Data Portal (operator) archived copyThe live catalogue, an Esri ArcGIS Hub site. Hub domain registry gives orgId nyYfO9SxHU2ChQd9, orgTitle 'City of Cape Town', siteId 1a838b218c314e458d078973c02774b3, created 29 May 2018 — the migration from the older 2015 platform.
↗ ArcGIS sharing API — catalogue count and type breakdown (operator API)Queried 26 July 2026. total 256 across the site's three catalogue groups; counts by type as reported in the impact field. Group ids taken from the site item's own catalog definition.
↗ ArcGIS item record, 'Cape Town CBD' (operator)Shows the catalogue's licence pattern verbatim: licenseInfo is a bare link element to capetown.gov.za/General/Terms-of-use-open-data, with no licence text. Item modified January 2026, evidence the catalogue is maintained.
↗ City of Cape Town Open Data terms of use (authority) archived copyThe instrument every dataset points at. Could NOT be read on 26 July 2026: this URL and every other capetown.gov.za page tried returned HTTP 502 or 503 to automated clients, including through a text proxy. Host-wide, so no conclusion is drawn about the page itself.
Show 2 more sourcesShow fewer
↗ Code for South Africa, 'Cape Town's open data policy. Time to celebrate?' (independent, 27 Sep 2014) archived copyContemporary critique of the first policy: it requires acceptance of terms that are never defined, does not define open data, and makes publication subject to committee approval. The 2020 revision still defers licensing to the Terms of Use.
↗ Western Cape Government Open Data Portal (provincial, context) archived copyThe provincial layer publishes separately, on its own ArcGIS Hub site — not part of the City catalogue and deliberately not merged into this entry.
Show your work What this page rests on and what it can’t tell you · all 7 claims with their sources · the forensic record

Evidence Passport · public beta 7 addressable claims, 7 source dossiers, one permanent baseline. The passport is unreviewed — an AI-assisted structural migration, not a human or expert endorsement. Every revision keeps a permanent copy under revision history.

Inspect the claims, one by one — verbatim text, sources and caveats for all 7

The text below is copied verbatim from the published record. Each claim names the source dossiers that carry it; caveats stay attached to the claim they qualify.

Claim 1 clm-c96f54dc6250a0e0 descriptive
Cape Town runs its own catalogue, and owns it outright: the ArcGIS organisation behind the portal is registered to the City of Cape Town and every dataset is published by a municipal account
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The platform's own domain registry gives the organisation title 'City of Cape Town' with a site created on 29 May 2018, the migration from the older 2015 platform. The provincial layer publishes separately on its own site and is deliberately not merged into this entry, which is what makes the municipal ownership statement checkable.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. City of Cape Town Open Data Portal (operator)
  2. Western Cape Government Open Data Portal (provincial, context)
Claim 2 clm-4bf8d15ce7a4f78b quantitative
Counted through the platform API on 26 July 2026, the portal's three catalogue groups held 256 items, spatial and tabular together — 178 feature services, 25 CSV files, 21 Excel workbooks, 6 PDFs and a scattering of others, plus 18 application templates that are not data
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
Queried on 26 July 2026: a total of 256 across the site's three catalogue groups, with the type breakdown as stated. The group identifiers were taken from the site item's own catalogue definition.
Caveat
A count taken from the platform API by this desk, not a figure the city publishes. The city's own portal copy still advertises 'over 106 datasets' and a 2015 launch with 29.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. ArcGIS sharing API — catalogue count and type breakdown (operator API)
Claim 3 clm-203fecbda1891404 quantitative
A Council-approved Open Data Policy exists and has been revised twice, most recently as policy 27781 on 3 December 2020, but it names no licence. It says only that use of the portal will be subject to its Terms of Use, and that those terms will conform with open data principles
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The policy header reads 'OPEN DATA POLICY (POLICY NUMBER 27781) REVISED AND APPROVED BY COUNCIL: 03 DECEMBER 2020 VIDE ITEM C20/12/20', version 3, previous review 26 May 2016. The licensing clause in full is: 'The use of the Open Data Portal will be subject to its Terms of Use. The Terms of Use will conform with open data principles.' No licence is named.
Caveat
The PDF would not parse directly; the text was extracted through a rendering proxy.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. City of Cape Town Open Data Policy, policy 27781 (authority)
Claim 4 clm-ec72324bffe11326 quantitative
Every record inspected carries the same link to that municipal terms page in place of a standard instrument, and in 200 records sampled from the platform index all 200 were classified as a custom licence
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
A sample item shows the pattern verbatim: its licence field is a bare link element to the municipal terms-of-use page with no licence text, and the item was modified in January 2026, evidence the catalogue is maintained. Across 200 records sampled from the platform index, all 200 were classified as a custom licence.
Caveat
A complete per-record census of the 256 could not be obtained because the platform's licence filter and aggregation endpoints return errors.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. ArcGIS item record, 'Cape Town CBD' (operator)
  2. ArcGIS sharing API — catalogue count and type breakdown (operator API)
Claim 5 clm-719d0b9b044f090a descriptive
No Creative Commons deed, public-domain dedication or other recognised open licence appears anywhere in the catalogue
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The licence sample returned no standard instrument in any of the 200 records examined, and the policy names none. The instrument every dataset points at could not be read on 26 July 2026: that URL and every other municipal page tried returned an error to automated clients, including through a text proxy — a host-wide failure, so no conclusion is drawn about the page itself.
Caveat
A negative finding limited by the unreadable terms page: what is established is that no recognised deed appears in the catalogue records, not what the terms page says.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. ArcGIS sharing API — catalogue count and type breakdown (operator API)
  2. City of Cape Town Open Data terms of use (authority)
Claim 6 clm-c316f8ce75cf90e1 quantitative
Licence sample: 200 of 200 platform records classified 'custom', i.e. a non-standard licence; a complete per-record census of the 256 could not be obtained because the platform's licence filter and aggregation endpoints return errors
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The licence sample drawn on 26 July 2026 returned 200 of 200 records classified as custom, and the endpoints that would have allowed a full census returned errors.
Caveat
The entry states the limit of its own count rather than extrapolating the sample to the full catalogue.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. ArcGIS sharing API — catalogue count and type breakdown (operator API)
Claim 7 clm-985988b3673ba999 descriptive
A policy that promises terms conforming to open data principles, without naming an instrument, is a self-assessment rather than a grant
Published field
lesson · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The policy's entire licensing clause defers to terms of use that it says will conform with open data principles, naming nothing. A contemporary independent critique of the first policy made the same point in 2014 — it requires acceptance of terms that are never defined, does not define open data, and makes publication subject to committee approval — and the 2020 revision still defers licensing to the Terms of Use.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. City of Cape Town Open Data Policy, policy 27781 (authority)
  2. Code for South Africa, 'Cape Town's open data policy. Time to celebrate?' (independent, 27 Sep 2014)
Forensic record — source dossiers, gaps, hashes and the exact revision this page renders

This layer records what is known about each source, what is still missing, and the exact snapshot this page is rendering. A missing date, archive or hash stays visible as missing.

unreviewed Revision 2026-08-22-cross-city-sourcing effective 2026-07-26 · created 2026-08-22

Awaiting operator and domain-expert review; publication of this revision implies neither.

sha256:0049ea5613a0358b7735ed1f8b5aba488236d58357cbacfc280215e56b4e463c
Revision history → Permanent version link → Machine-readable record → Evidence Constitution →
7
of 7 claims mapped
7
source dossiers
1
publication dates recorded
0
archives linked
0
exact locators
0
content captures hashed

Governance facts carried by the record

Operator
City of Cape Town
Actor types
city-government
Funding model
public
Funding description
Not recorded
Cost
Not recorded
Ownership
Not recorded
Decision rights
Not recorded
Exit conditions
Not recorded

7 source dossiers

City of Cape Town Open Data Policy, policy 27781 (authority) resource.capetown.gov.za · 2 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-2613dec295c93ea5
Publisher
Name not classified · resource.capetown.gov.za
Type / language
pdf · language not classified
Published
Not recorded
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-22
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Header: 'OPEN DATA POLICY (POLICY NUMBER 27781) REVISED AND APPROVED BY COUNCIL: 03 DECEMBER 2020 VIDE ITEM C20/12/20', version 3, previous review 26 May 2016. Licensing clause in full: 'The use of the Open Data Portal will be subject to its Terms of Use. The Terms of Use will conform with open data principles.' No licence named. PDF would not parse directly; text extracted through a rendering proxy.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
City of Cape Town Open Data Portal (operator) odp-cctegis.opendata.arcgis.com · 1 linked claim

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-584fee0daf30d103
Publisher
Name not classified · odp-cctegis.opendata.arcgis.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
Not recorded
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-22
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

The live catalogue, an Esri ArcGIS Hub site. Hub domain registry gives orgId nyYfO9SxHU2ChQd9, orgTitle 'City of Cape Town', siteId 1a838b218c314e458d078973c02774b3, created 29 May 2018 — the migration from the older 2015 platform.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
ArcGIS sharing API — catalogue count and type breakdown (operator API) arcgis.com · 4 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-c0a3c0fc47bae396
Publisher
Name not classified · arcgis.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
Not recorded
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-22
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Queried 26 July 2026. total 256 across the site's three catalogue groups; counts by type as reported in the impact field. Group ids taken from the site item's own catalog definition.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
ArcGIS item record, 'Cape Town CBD' (operator) arcgis.com · 1 linked claim

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-138e19a27985548b
Publisher
Name not classified · arcgis.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
Not recorded
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-22
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Shows the catalogue's licence pattern verbatim: licenseInfo is a bare link element to capetown.gov.za/General/Terms-of-use-open-data, with no licence text. Item modified January 2026, evidence the catalogue is maintained.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
City of Cape Town Open Data terms of use (authority) capetown.gov.za · 1 linked claim

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-5c152b39448d3f90
Publisher
Name not classified · capetown.gov.za
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
Not recorded
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-22
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

The instrument every dataset points at. Could NOT be read on 26 July 2026: this URL and every other capetown.gov.za page tried returned HTTP 502 or 503 to automated clients, including through a text proxy. Host-wide, so no conclusion is drawn about the page itself.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Code for South Africa, 'Cape Town's open data policy. Time to celebrate?' (independent, 27 Sep 2014) code4sa.org · 1 linked claim

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-dd07df68393a59d9
Publisher
Name not classified · code4sa.org
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2014-09-27
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-22
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Contemporary critique of the first policy: it requires acceptance of terms that are never defined, does not define open data, and makes publication subject to committee approval. The 2020 revision still defers licensing to the Terms of Use.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Western Cape Government Open Data Portal (provincial, context) wcg-opendataportal-westerncapegov.hub.arcgis.com · 1 linked claim

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-64b2a35f04999e24
Publisher
Name not classified · wcg-opendataportal-westerncapegov.hub.arcgis.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
Not recorded
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-22
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

The provincial layer publishes separately, on its own ArcGIS Hub site — not part of the City catalogue and deliberately not merged into this entry.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Known limits of this passport
  • Publisher names and source languages have not yet been classified; domains are recorded without guessing.
  • Existing source notes are descriptive locators, not page- or paragraph-exact citations.
  • A missing archive, publication date or content hash is shown as null rather than inferred.
  • The project-level evidence grade ranks the strongest source in the entry; it is not a truth score for every claim.

Continue exploring

Compare this project

🇿🇦 Day Zero: Cape Town's Drought Demand Management · Cape Town The weekly dam-level dashboard that outlived Day Zero itself, published through the city's own data channels. 🇸🇪 Stockholm Open Data Portal · Stockholm Same gap: Stockholm also never named one sitewide licence, leaving reusers to read department terms instead. 🇺🇸 City of Miami Open Data: A Live GIS Hub and a Stalled Portal · Miami Same move: a policy that promises open data while the actual right sits only in a terms-of-use page, not a licence.

Explore the wider context

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📎 Cite this project

1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Cape Town Open Data Portal” — Cape Town, South Africa. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/cape-town-open-data/ (last verified 2026-07-26). Data: CC BY 4.0.

The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.

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