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Technically, the term "Cape Coloured" referred to a subset of "Coloured" South Africans, with subjective criteria having been used by the Apartheid bureaucracy to determine whether a person was a "Cape Coloured", or belonged to one of a number of other related "Coloured" subgroups such as the "Cape Malays", or "Other Coloureds". Currently this term is used very crudely to distinguish people of mixed ancestry from the phenotypically (and generally more genetically homogeneous) paler South Africans of European descent, and the darker "black" South Africans. There are often exceptions to this generalization, and consequently Apartheid classifications often led to tragi-comic consequences, with some paler family members being classified as "white" and others "coloured". This contentious classification has no consistent meaning among South Africans – opinion, more than anything else, dictates who is classified as "Cape Coloured".

The Cape Coloured group is far from being homogeneous: the divisions within it were accentuated by the Apartheid classifications which defined type hierarchies with this grouping. As a consequence, there is much racial intolerance between self-defined groups of Cape Coloureds. Many Cape Coloureds are from totally different heritages, some having mostly European and others mostly black South African heritage. Many also have mostly Indian or mostly Indonesian/Malay heritage. Religious differences also exist, many being Christian and others Muslim. Therefore many Cape Coloureds feel very insulted being classified into the single "Coloured" racial category.

For the traveller to the Cape Province, Cape Coloureds are among the many friendly people you'll come across while travelling in South Africa, and to start off a good relationship with any Coloured person, try to avoid speaking about their roots as it is such a controversial and complicated topic, instead if you're really interested in knowing more about the history, and want to hear stories directly from a Coloured person then there are many popular venues you may attend, or visit local museums and heritage sites.

The modern day Cape Coloureds of South Africa, are a very friendly educated and vibrant people with the majority of them speaking English as their first language, unlike their older generation who spoke Afrikaans as a first language and English as a second language.