Posted on June 9, 2010 - by Stephen Murray

Cape Town the Global City

Here’s something you probably didn’t know: According to the Global World Cities Ranking, Cape Town is the 16th (level with 5 other cities) most prominent city in the world where English is the Lingua Franca (English is not necessarily the most widely spoken language in each of these cases but it is the language on which each of these cities run. So for example more people speak Afrikaans as a first language in Cape Town than English). Here’s the top 33:

1st New York, London
3rd Sydney,
4th Toronto, Chicago,
6th Dublin, Los Angeles, Auckland
9th Melbourne, Johannesburg, Atlanta,
12th Dallas, Boston
14th Miami, Houston,
16th Montreal, Brisbane, Denver, Vancouver, Cape Town, Minneapolis, Seattle,
23rd Perth, Philadelphia, Portland, Lagos
27th Detroit, Manchester, Wellington, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Calgary, Columbus

It’s nice knowing you live in a city that stands out on the global stage. It also convinces me more that Cape Town is a thoroughly important place for the task of church planting.

As a side note…I wonder what the World Cup will do to these rankings – if anything.