Gardens (or The Gardens) is an affluent inner-city suburb of Cape Town located just to the south of the city centre located in the higher elevations of the "City Bowl" and directly beneath Table Mountain and Lion's Head.

The area is also home to the oldest synagogue in Southern Africa, the Old Shul (now occupied by the South African Jewish Museum) and its successor, the Gardens Shul, "The Mother Synagogue of South Africa."

No permanent settlement existed until the Dutch East India Company issued a mandate to Jan van Riebeeck, a ship's surgeon, to establish a settlement which could provide passing ships with fruit, vegetables and fresh meat (traded from the locals).

During the time of Simon van der Stel, it was lined with oak trees, which remain today.

The Gardens Centre Tower was built in the 1970s in response to a "white housing crisis" in racially segregated Cape Town.

The South Africa national rugby union team (Springboks) usually stayed there when they were playing in Cape Town.

[10] Kloof Street mostly consisted of boarding houses for most of the twentieth century, many have now been converted into restaurants, cafes, boutiques and hotels.