Cape Delgado () is a coastal

promontory A promontory is a raised mass of land that projects into a lowland or a body of water (in which case it is a peninsula). Most promontories either are formed from a hard ridge of rock that has resisted the erosive forces that have removed the s ...

south of

Mozambique Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique, is a country located in Southeast Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west, and Eswatini and South Afr ...

's border with

Tanzania Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to t ...

. It is the arc-shaped

delta Delta commonly refers to: * Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet * D (NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta"), the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet * River delta, at a river mouth * Delta Air Lines, a major US carrier ...

of the Rovuma River and was created from sediment deposited by the Rovuma as it empties into the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

. It is sometimes identified with Prasum, the southernmost point of

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

known to the Roman geographers Marinus of Tyre and

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; , ; ; – 160s/170s AD) was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine science, Byzant ...

. In

Ptolemy's Geography The ''Geography'' (, , "Geographical Guidance"), also known by its Latin names as the ' and the ', is a gazetteer, an atlas, and a treatise on cartography, compiling the geographical knowledge of the 2nd-century Roman Empire. Originally wri ...

, it marked the point where Africa turned eastward along a great unknown shore to meet

southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

and enclose the

. Medieval Islamic cartographers dispensed with the idea at least as early as the 9th-century

al-Khwārizmī Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi , or simply al-Khwarizmi, was a mathematician active during the Islamic Golden Age, who produced Arabic-language works in mathematics, astronomy, and geography. Around 820, he worked at the House of Wisdom in B ...

but the conception returned to Europe following Jacobus Angelus's

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

translation of

Maximus Planudes Maximus Planudes (, ''Máximos Planoúdēs''; ) was a Byzantine Greek monk, scholar, anthologist, translator, mathematician, grammarian and theologian at Constantinople. Through his translations from Latin into Greek and from Greek into Latin, ...

's restored Ptolemaic text and was not (openly) dispensed with until after Bartholomew Dias's successful circumnavigation of Africa in 1488. Cape Delgado gives its name to

Cabo Delgado Province Cabo Delgado is the northernmost province of Mozambique. It has an area of and a population of 2,320,261 (2017). It borders the Mtwara Region in the neighbouring country of Tanzania, and the provinces of Nampula and Niassa. The Province is ri ...

of Mozambique.

References

River deltas of Africa Mozambique–Tanzania border Landforms of Mozambique Landforms of Tanzania Geography of Cabo Delgado Province

Delgado Delgado is a Spanish and Portuguese surname originating from Latin ''delicatus'', meaning 'delicate' or 'soft'. Notable people with the surname include: * Adrián Delgado, Venezuelan actor * Agustín Delgado (born 1974), Ecuadorian footballer * Ai ...

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