The Cape of Good Hope is a headland close to Cape Town in South Africa. It gave its name to the Cape Colony and Cape Town itself. It is not, however, the southernmost point of the continent of Africa: that is Cape Agulhas, 90 miles to its east. The first European explorer to reach the Cape was Bartolomeu Dias, in 1488. He named it Cabo des Tormentas (Cape of Storms); King John II of Portugal gave it its more prepossessing current name.