Cape Lopez
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Cape Lopez
Cape Lopez () is a headland on the coast of Gabon, west central Africa. The westernmost point of Gabon, it separates the Gulf of Guinea from the South Atlantic Ocean. Cape Lopez is the northernmost point of a low, wooded island between two mouths of the Ogooué River. There is an oil terminal at the southeast side of the cape, and the seaport of Port-Gentil lies about 10 km southeast of the cape. A lighthouse has existed on the Cape since 1897; the current tower was built in 1911, but has been inactive for many years and is in danger of collapsing from erosion. It is named after the Portuguese explorer Lopes Gonçalves, who reached it circa 1474. In 1602, the Dutch explorer and writer Pieter de Marees published some images of its people. File:Johann Theodor de Bry - Inwoners van Kaap de Lopo Gonsalves RP-P-BI-5268.jpg, Inhabitants of ''Kaap de Lopo Gonsalves'', 1602 See also *Battle of Cape Lopez The Battle of Cape Lopez was fought in early 1722 during the Golden Age of Pi ...
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Erosion
Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is distinct from weathering which involves no movement. Removal of rock or soil as clastic sediment is referred to as ''physical'' or ''mechanical'' erosion; this contrasts with ''chemical'' erosion, where soil or rock material is removed from an area by dissolution. Eroded sediment or solutes may be transported just a few millimetres, or for thousands of kilometres. Agents of erosion include rainfall; bedrock wear in rivers; coastal erosion by the sea and waves; glacial plucking, abrasion, and scour; areal flooding; wind abrasion; groundwater processes; and mass movement processes in steep landscapes like landslides and debris flows. The rates at which such processes act control how fast a surface is eroded. Typically, physical erosion procee ...
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Peninsulas Of Africa
A peninsula (; ) is a landform that extends from a mainland and is surrounded by water on most, but not all of its borders. A peninsula is also sometimes defined as a piece of land bordered by water on three of its sides. Peninsulas exist on all continents. The size of a peninsula can range from tiny to very large. The largest peninsula in the world is the Arabian Peninsula. Peninsulas form due to a variety of causes. Etymology Peninsula derives , which is translated as 'peninsula'. itself was derived , or together, 'almost an island'. The word entered English in the 16th century. Definitions A peninsula is usually defined as a piece of land surrounded on most, but not all sides, but is sometimes instead defined as a piece of land bordered by water on three of its sides. A peninsula may be bordered by more than one body of water, and the body of water does not have to be an ocean or a sea. A piece of land on a very tight river bend or one between two rivers is sometimes s ...
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Landforms Of Gabon
A landform is a natural or anthropogenic land feature on the solid surface of the Earth or other planetary body. Landforms together make up a given terrain, and their arrangement in the landscape is known as topography. Landforms include hills, mountains, canyons, and valleys, as well as shoreline features such as bays, peninsulas, and seas, including submerged features such as mid-ocean ridges, volcanoes, and the great ocean basins. Physical characteristics Landforms are categorized by characteristic physical attributes such as elevation, slope, orientation, stratification, rock exposure and soil type. Gross physical features or landforms include intuitive elements such as berms, mounds, hills, ridges, cliffs, valleys, rivers, peninsulas, volcanoes, and numerous other structural and size-scaled (e.g. ponds vs. lakes, hills vs. mountains) elements including various kinds of inland and oceanic waterbodies and sub-surface features. Mountains, hills, plateaux, and plains are ...
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Battle Of Cape Lopez
The Battle of Cape Lopez was fought in early 1722 during the Golden Age of Piracy. A Royal Navy man-of-war under Captain Chaloner Ogle defeated the pirate ship of Bartholomew Roberts off the coast of Gabon, West Africa. Background Roberts was the most successful pirate of the Golden Age; he captured well over 400 vessels ranging from small fishing boats to large frigates. In April 1721, Roberts, also known as "Black Bart", was sailing the coast of Martinique when he came across a French frigate of fifty-two guns and captured her. Aboard the vessel was the governor of the French colony who was hanged by Roberts from the yardarm of his ship. This act proved to be his downfall as it was apparently the final straw. In retaliation for Black Bart's repeated attacks on fleets of merchant ships and his killing of the governor, the French Navy and the Royal Navy dispatched several warships to hunt the pirates. Roberts and his men captured the two French warships off the Senegal Rivers mout ...
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Pieter De Marees
Pieter de Marees was a Dutch trader and explorer who is notable for writing an extensive report about his trip to the Gold Coast in 1602. This ''Beschrijvinghe ende historische verhael van het Gout Koninckrijck van Gunea anders de Gout-custe de Mina genaemt, liggende in het deel van Africa'' was the first thorough description of this part of Africa in the Dutch language, and greatly increased interest in this region in the Dutch Republic. It was translated into German, English, and Latin, and remained the most important document on the Gold Coast until it was surpassed by Willem Bosman Willem Bosman (12 January 1672 – after 1703) was a merchant in the service of the Dutch West India Company, spending most of his time in the Dutch Gold Coast. Bosman was born in Utrecht. Although he sailed to the Gold Coast as an apprentice ...'s ''Nauwkeurige beschrijving van de Guinese Goud- Tand- en Slavekust'' (1703). References * P.D.M. ieter de Marees Beschrijvinghe ende historische ...
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Lopes Gonçalves
Lopes Gonçalves or Lopo Gonçalves was a Portuguese explorer of the African coast. He was the first European sailor to cross the equator, the first to reach the point where the coast turns south and the first to reach Gabon. In 1473 or 1474 he and Rui de Sequeira, pushing Portuguese exploration east along the Nigerian coast, reached the point where the coast begins to run south. He followed it south, crossed the equator, passed Cape Lopez Cape Lopez () is a headland on the coast of Gabon, west central Africa. The westernmost point of Gabon, it separates the Gulf of Guinea from the South Atlantic Ocean. Cape Lopez is the northernmost point of a low, wooded island between two mouths ... in Gabon, which is named after him, and reached Cape St. Catherine, which is about 2 degrees south. References * J. H. Parry, The Age of Reconnaissance, 1963, page 149 Portuguese explorers 15th-century explorers of Africa 15th-century Portuguese people Maritime history of Portugal
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Portuguese Discoveries
Portuguese maritime exploration resulted in the numerous territories and maritime routes recorded by the Portuguese as a result of their intensive maritime journeys during the 15th and 16th centuries. Portuguese sailors were at the vanguard of European exploration, chronicling and mapping the coasts of Africa and Asia, then known as the East Indies, and Canada and Brazil (the West Indies), in what came to be known as the Age of Discovery. Methodical expeditions started in 1419 along West Africa's coast under the sponsorship of prince Henry the Navigator, with Bartolomeu Dias reaching the Cape of Good Hope and entering the Indian Ocean in 1488. Ten years later, in 1498, Vasco da Gama led the first fleet around Africa to India, arriving in Calicut and starting a maritime route from Portugal to India. Portuguese explorations then proceeded to southeast Asia, where they reached Japan in 1542, forty-four years after their first arrival in India. In 1500, the Portuguese nobleman Ped ...
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Lighthouse
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses mark dangerous coastlines, hazardous shoals, reefs, rocks, and safe entries to harbors; they also assist in aerial navigation. Once widely used, the number of operational lighthouses has declined due to the expense of maintenance and has become uneconomical since the advent of much cheaper, more sophisticated and effective electronic navigational systems. History Ancient lighthouses Before the development of clearly defined ports, mariners were guided by fires built on hilltops. Since elevating the fire would improve the visibility, placing the fire on a platform became a practice that led to the development of the lighthouse. In antiquity, the lighthouse functioned more as an entrance marker to ports than as a warning signal for reefs a ...
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Gabon
Gabon (; ; snq, Ngabu), officially the Gabonese Republic (french: République gabonaise), is a country on the west coast of Central Africa. Located on the equator, it is bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, the Republic of the Congo on the east and south, and the Gulf of Guinea to the west. It has an area of nearly and its population is estimated at million people. There are coastal plains, mountains (the Cristal Mountains and the Chaillu Massif in the centre), and a savanna in the east. Since its independence from France in 1960, the sovereign state of Gabon has had three presidents. In the 1990s, it introduced a multi-party system and a democratic constitution that aimed for a more transparent electoral process and reformed some governmental institutions. With petroleum and foreign private investment, it has the fourth highest HDI in the region (after Mauritius, Seychelles and South Africa) and the fifth highest GDP per capita (PPP) i ...
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Port-Gentil
Port-Gentil () or Mandji is the second-largest city of Gabon, and it is a leading seaport. It is the center of Gabon's petroleum and timber industries. The city is located on a delta island in the Ogooue delta with no bridges to the mainland. Nearby Cape Lopez is Gabon's westernmost point. As of 2013 census, it had a population of 136,462. History In 1473, the Portuguese navigator Lopo Gonçalves sailed near Cape Lopez. In 1722, pirates led by Bartholomew Roberts fought a battle in the Cape Lopez Bay against the Royal Navy. The encounter ended in Roberts' death. The settlement was established on Mandji Island in the delta of the Ogooué River by the French, who signed a treaty with the Orungu people in 1873. It was used as a base for the expeditions of de Brazza into the interior, then in 1894 a customs post was set up, becoming the nucleus of a trading center that included Hatton & Cookson, John Holt, Woermann, Société du Haut-Ogooué, and Compagnie d'Exploitations Fo ...
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Ogooué River
The Ogooué (or Ogowe), also known as the Nazareth river, some long, is the principal river of Gabon in west central Africa and the fifth largest river in Africa by volume of discharge, trailing only the Congo, Kasai, Niger and Zambezi. Its watershed drains nearly the entire country of Gabon, with some tributaries reaching into the Republic of the Congo, Cameroon, and Equatorial Guinea. Course The source of the Ogooué River was discovered in 1894 by Mary Kingsley, an English explorer who travelled up the banks by steamboat and canoe. The river rises in the northwest of the Bateke Plateaux near Kengue, Republic of Congo. It runs northwest, and enters Gabon near Boumango. Poubara Falls are near Maulongo. From Lastoursville up to Ndjole, the Ogooué is non-navigable due to rapids. From the latter city, it runs west, and enters the Gulf of Guinea near Ozouri, south of Port Gentil. The Ogowe Delta is quite large, about 100 km long and 100 km wide. Basin The Og ...
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