Bay

The bay at Castletown, Isle of Man.
The bay of Baracoa, Cuba

A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay.[1][2][3] A large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound, or bight. A cove is a small, circular bay with a narrow entrance. A fjord is an elongated bay formed by glacial action.[4] The term embayment is also used for related features, such as extinct bays or freshwater environments.

A bay can be the estuary of a river, such as the Chesapeake Bay, an estuary of the Susquehanna River.[2] Bays may also be nested within each other; for example, James Bay is an arm of Hudson Bay in northeastern Canada. Some large bays, such as the Bay of Bengal and Hudson Bay, have varied marine geology.[citation needed]

The land surrounding a bay often reduces the strength of winds and blocks waves. Bays may have as wide a variety of shoreline characteristics as other shorelines. In some cases, bays have beaches, which "are usually characterized by a steep upper foreshore with a broad, flat fronting terrace".[5] Bays were significant in the history of human settlement because they provided easy access to marine resources like fisheries.[6] Later they were important in the development of sea trade as the safe anchorage they provide encouraged their selection as ports.[7]

  1. ^ "Definition of BAY". Merriam-Webster. Archived from the original on March 21, 2017. Retrieved March 21, 2017.
  2. ^ a b "Chesapeake Bay, Maryland". Maryland Manual On-Line. Maryland State Archives. November 28, 2016. Archived from the original on March 16, 2017. Retrieved March 21, 2017.
  3. ^ "bay". Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. Archived from the original on March 22, 2017. Retrieved March 21, 2017.
  4. ^ "What is a Fjord, and how is it formed". Norway Today. 2016-05-08. Archived from the original on 2017-12-25. Retrieved 2017-12-30.
  5. ^ Maurice Schwartz, Encyclopedia of Coastal Science (2006), p. 129.
  6. ^ Jones, Terry L. (July 1991). "Marine-Resource Value and the Priority of Coastal Settlement: A California Perspective". American Antiquity. 56 (3): 419–443. doi:10.2307/280893. ISSN 0002-7316.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference fenh was invoked but never defined (see the help page).