Queen Elizabeth II Quay, also known as QE II Quay (/ˌkjuːiːˈtuːkiː/) and by residents as the Deep Water Quay, is a locality in Freetown, Sierra Leone. It is located on a promontory called Fourah Point (also known variously as Farran Point, Farren Point, and Foura Point) on the southern bank of the estuary of the Sierra Leone River between Destruction Bay and Cline Bay within the suburb of Cline Town directly to the east of central Freetown. It is the larger of two harbors within Freetown, the other harbor known as Government Wharf, Freetown Port, or simply "the harbor" and is Freetown's more centrally located harbor.
Queen Elizabeth II Quay has sometimes been the called the "third largest natural harbor in the world"— this is inaccurate in two respects: 1.) the QE II Quay is not itself a natural harbor but a man-made port or "quay", and 2.) the quay is a very small feature of the river estuary on which it was built— it is this estuary which has carved out what is the largest natural harbor on the African continent.
This still puts this harbor behind Port Jackson in Sydney, Australia, and several natural harbors claiming the title for world's second largest, including Halifax Harbour in Nova Scotia, Poole Harbour in Dorset, southern England, and Cork Harbour in County Cork, Ireland. The government of Sierra Leone assumed management of the Quay in 1964. It decided to privatize the property in 2007, converting the port from a "service" port into a "land lord" port.