The morphology of the continental margin between Cape Town (34° S) and Walvis Bay (23° S) is characterized by a broad, terraced shelf, separated from the slope by a poorly defined shelf break which deepens northward. A major belt of positive magnetic anomalies follows the upper slope, but is displaced in a right-lateral sense on to the continental shelf at 31° S, to the north of which it crosses a bend in the shelf break and again follows the upper slope. The gravity data is consistent with the normal edge effect associated with an isostatically compensated continental margin.