A harbor (American English), or harbour (British English; see spelling differences), is a sheltered body of water where ships, boats, and barges can be moored. The term harbor is often used interchangeably with port , which is a man-made facility built for loading and unloading vessels and dropping off and picking up passengers. Harbors usually include one or more ports. Alexandria Port in Egypt is an example of a harbor with two ports.
Harbors may be natural or artificial. An artificial harbor can have deliberately constructed breakwaters, sea walls, or jetties or they can be constructed by dredging, which requires maintenance by further periodic dredging. An example of an artificial harbor is Long Beach Harbor, California, United States, which was an array of salt marshes and tidal flats too shallow for modern merchant ships before it was first dredged in the early 20th century. [1] In contrast, a natural harbor is surrounded on several sides by land. Examples of natural harbors include Sydney Harbour, New South Wales, Australia, Halifax Harbour in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada and Trincomalee Harbour in Sri Lanka.
Artificial harbors are frequently built for use as ports. The oldest artificial harbor known is the Ancient Egyptian site at Wadi al-Jarf, on the Red Sea coast, which is at least 4500 years old (ca. 2600-2550 BCE, reign of King Khufu). The largest artificially created harbor is Jebel Ali in Dubai. [2] Other large and busy artificial harbors include:
The Ancient Carthaginians constructed fortified, artificial harbors called cothons.
A natural harbor is a landform where a section of a body of water is protected and deep enough to allow anchorage. Many such harbors are rias. Natural harbors have long been of great strategic naval and economic importance, and many great cities of the world are located on them. Having a protected harbor reduces or eliminates the need for breakwaters as it will result in calmer waves inside the harbor. Some examples are:
For harbors near the North and South poles, being ice-free is an important advantage, especially when it is year-round. Examples of these are:
The world's southernmost harbor, located at Antarctica's Winter Quarters Bay (77° 50′ South), is sometimes ice-free, depending on the summertime pack ice conditions. [3]
Although the world's busiest port is a contested title, in 2017 the world's busiest harbor by cargo tonnage was the Port of Ningbo-Zhoushan. [7]
The following are large natural harbors:
Twin cities are a special case of two neighboring cities or urban centres that grow into a single conurbation – or narrowly separated urban areas – over time. There are no formal criteria, but twin cities are generally comparable in status and size, though not necessarily equal; a city and a substantially smaller suburb would not typically qualify, even if they were once separate. Tri-cities and quad cities are similar phenomena involving three or four municipalities.
A maritime museum is a museum specializing in the display of objects relating to ships and travel on large bodies of water. A subcategory of maritime museums are naval museums, which focus on navies and the military use of the sea.
A ria is a coastal inlet formed by the partial submergence of an unglaciated river valley. It is a drowned river valley that remains open to the sea.
Trincomalee, also known as Gokanna and Gokarna, is the administrative headquarters of the Trincomalee District and major resort port city of Eastern Province, Sri Lanka. Located on the east coast of the island overlooking the Trincomalee Harbour, Trincomalee has been one of the main centres of Sri Lankan Tamil speaking culture on the island for nearly a millennium. With a population of 99,135, the city is built on a peninsula of the same name, which divides its inner and outer harbours. It is home to the famous Koneswaram temple from where it developed and earned its historic Tamil name Thirukonamalai. The town is home to other historical monuments such as the Bhadrakali Amman Temple, Trincomalee, the Trincomalee Hindu Cultural Hall and, opened in 1897, the Trincomalee Hindu College. Trincomalee is also the site of the Trincomalee railway station and an ancient ferry service to Jaffna and the south side of the harbour at Muttur.
Land reclamation, usually known as reclamation, and also known as land fill, is the process of creating new land from oceans, seas, riverbeds or lake beds. The land reclaimed is known as reclamation ground, reclaimed land, or land fill.
Halifax is the capital and most populous municipality of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, and the most populous municipality in Atlantic Canada. As of 2022, it is estimated that the population of the Halifax CMA was 480,582, with 348,634 people in its urban area. The regional municipality consists of four former municipalities that were amalgamated in 1996: Halifax, Dartmouth, Bedford, and Halifax County.
Dredging is the excavation of material from a water environment. Possible reasons for dredging include improving existing water features; reshaping land and water features to alter drainage, navigability, and commercial use; constructing dams, dikes, and other controls for streams and shorelines; and recovering valuable mineral deposits or marine life having commercial value. In all but a few situations the excavation is undertaken by a specialist floating plant, known as a dredger.
Water police, also called bay constables, coastal police, harbor patrols, marine/maritime police/patrol, nautical patrols, port police, or river police are a specialty law enforcement portion of a larger police organization, who patrol in water craft. Their patrol areas may include coastal tidal waters, rivers, estuaries, harbors, lakes, canals or a combination of these.
Halifax Harbour is a large natural harbour on the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia, Canada, located in the Halifax Regional Municipality. Halifax largely owes its existence to the harbour, being one of the largest and deepest ice-free natural harbours in the world. Before Confederation it was one of the most important commercial ports on the Atlantic seaboard. In 1917, it was the site of the world's largest man-made accidental explosion, when the SS Mont-Blanc blew up in the Halifax Explosion of December 6.
The Eastern Shore is a region of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. It is the Atlantic coast running northeast from Halifax Harbour to the eastern end of the peninsula at the Strait of Canso.
Dingwall is an unincorporated area of approximately 600 residents in the Aspy Bay region of the Municipality of the County of Victoria, Nova Scotia, Canada. It is situated just off the Cabot Trail, 84.68 kilometers northeast of county seat Baddeck. The federal electoral riding is Sydney—Victoria.
Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) Dockyard is the largest naval base of the Sri Lanka Navy and a major shipyard located in Trincomalee, Sri Lanka. Established by the British as the Royal Naval Dockyard, Trincomalee, it was home to the East Indies Station of the Royal Navy during World War II. Since the withdrawal of the Royal Navy, the Royal Ceylon Navy took over dockyard. It became the home base of the RCyN fleet and today it is home to the Eastern Naval Command and the Naval and Maritime Academy of the Sri Lanka Navy.
Sydney Harbour is the 10-mile long Y-shaped inlet of the Atlantic, oriented southwest-northeast on the northeast shore of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. At its upper reaches, the harbour forks to form two arms: the Northwest Arm and the South Arm. The South Arm is fed upstream by the Sydney River.
The following index is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Wikipedia's articles on recreational dive sites. The level of coverage may vary:
Recreational dive sites are specific places that recreational scuba divers go to enjoy the underwater environment or for training purposes. They include technical diving sites beyond the range generally accepted for recreational diving. In this context all diving done for recreational purposes is included. Professional diving tends to be done where the job is, and with the exception of diver training and leading groups of recreational divers, does not generally occur at specific sites chosen for their easy access, pleasant conditions or interesting features.