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Gulf St Vincent, sometimes referred to as St Vincent Gulf, St Vincent's Gulf or Gulf of St Vincent, is the eastern of two large inlets of water on the southern coast of Australia, in the state of

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

, the other being the larger Spencer Gulf, from which it is separated by

Yorke Peninsula The Yorke Peninsula is a peninsula located northwest and west of Adelaide in South Australia, between Spencer Gulf on the west and Gulf St Vincent on the east. The peninsula is separated from Kangaroo Island to the south by Investigator Str ...

. On its eastern side the gulf is bordered by the Adelaide Plains and the

Fleurieu Peninsula The Fleurieu Peninsula () is a peninsula in the Australian state of South Australia located south of the state capital of Adelaide. History Before British colonisation of South Australia, the western side of the peninsula was occupied by the ...

Description

To the south it is defined by a line from Troubridge Point on Yorke Peninsula to Cape Jervis on Fleurieu Peninsula. Its entrances from the southwest are from

Investigator Strait Investigator Strait is a body of water in South Australia lying between the Yorke Peninsula, on the Australian mainland, and Kangaroo Island. It was named by Matthew Flinders after his ship, HMS ''Investigator'', on his voyage of 1801–1802 ...

, and to the southeast from

Backstairs Passage The Backstairs Passage is a strait in South Australia lying between Fleurieu Peninsula on the Australian mainland and Dudley Peninsula on the eastern end of Kangaroo Island. The western edge of the passage is a line from Cape Jervis on Fleurieu ...

, which separate

Kangaroo Island Kangaroo Island, also known as Karta Pintingga (literally 'Island of the Dead' in the language of the Kaurna people), is Australia's third-largest island, after Tasmania and Melville Island. It lies in the state of South Australia, southwest ...

from the mainland. Adelaide lies midway along the gulf's east shore. Other towns located on the gulf, from west to east include

Edithburgh Edithburgh is a small town on the south-east corner of Yorke Peninsula situated on the coastline of Salt Creek Bay, in the state of South Australia. Edithburgh is about west of Adelaide across Gulf St Vincent, but away by road. At the 2016 ...

, Port Vincent,

Ardrossan Ardrossan (; ) is a town on the North Ayrshire coast in southwestern Scotland. The town has a population of 10,670 and forms part of a conurbation with Saltcoats and Stevenston known as the ' Three Towns'. Ardrossan is located on the east shore ...

and Port Wakefield and Normanville.

History

The Aboriginal name given to it by the original inhabitants of the area, the Kaurna people was Wongajerla, also spelt Wongga Yerlo or Wonggayerlo, meaning "western sea". It was named Gulph of St. Vincent by Matthew Flinders on 30 March 1802, in honour of Admiral John Jervis (1st Earl of St Vincent) who won a naval victory off Cape St. Vincent, Portugal. It was shortly afterwards (after his meeting with Flinders at

Encounter Bay Encounter Bay is a bay in the Australian state of South Australia located on the state's south central coast about south of the state capital of Adelaide. It was named by Matthew Flinders after his encounter on 8 April 1802 with Nicolas Baudi ...

on 8 April 1802) mapped by Nicolas Baudin, who named it Golfe de la Mauvaise or Golfe de la Misanthrophie. In the following year Louis de Freycinet renamed it Golphe Josephine to honour Josephine Bonaparte. Due to Flinders' lengthy imprisonment on Mauritius during his return to England, the publication of Baudin's map preceded that of Flinders by three years. The Adelaide Desalination Plant which is located on Gulf St Vincent's eastern shore in Lonsdale, supplies the Adelaide metropolitan area with desalinated water from the gulf. It officially opened in 2013.

Environment

The Gulf teems with crustacea and polychaeta, as well as various species of

sea squirt Ascidiacea, commonly known as the ascidians, tunicates (in part), and sea squirts (in part), is a polyphyletic class in the subphylum Tunicata of sac-like marine invertebrate filter feeders. Ascidians are characterized by a tough outer "tunic" m ...

s and sea urchins. The benthos is a soft sediment shelf, with species of zosteraceae around the mouth of the

Port River The Port River (officially known as the Port Adelaide River) is part of a tidal estuary located north of the Adelaide city centre in the Australian state of South Australia. It has been used as a shipping channel since the beginning of European ...

. The

cardinalfish Cardinalfishes are a family, Apogonidae, of ray-finned fishes found in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans; they are chiefly marine, but some species are found in brackish water and a few (notably '' Glossamia'') are found in fresh water. A ...

genus '' Vincentia'' takes its name from Gulf St Vincent where the

type specimen In biology, a type is a particular specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to anchor or centralizes th ...

of its type species was collected.

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References

External links