The Santa Elena Peninsula is a

peninsula A peninsula is a landform that extends from a mainland and is only connected to land on one side. Peninsulas exist on each continent. The largest peninsula in the world is the Arabian Peninsula. Etymology The word ''peninsula'' derives , . T ...

Santa Elena Province The Province of Santa Elena () is a Provinces of Ecuador, province of Ecuador in the coastal region. Created in 2007 from territory that belonged to the Guayas Province, Ecuador, Guayas Province, it is one of the two newest provinces of Ecuador, ...

Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...

. The Santa Elena Peninsula contains the westernmost point on mainland Ecuador and is bordered by the

Gulf of Guayaquil The Gulf of Guayaquil is a large body of water of the Pacific Ocean in western South America. Its northern limit is the city of Santa Elena, Ecuador, Santa Elena, in Ecuador, and its southern limit is Cabo Blanco, Peru, Cabo Blanco, in Peru. The ...

to the south and the Santa Elena Bay to the north. The peninsula region is dry and contains resources such as

salt mine Salt mining extracts natural salt deposits from underground. The mined salt is usually in the form of halite (commonly known as rock salt), and extracted from evaporite formations. History Before the advent of the modern internal combustio ...

s and a significant oil field at Ancón.Britannica Online Encyclopedia - Santa Elena Peninsula
/ref> The settlement of Chinchipe is the closest settlement to the tip of the peninsula; it is served by Ecuador Highway 70, which extends to the tip of the peninsula.

Whale watching Whale watching is the practice of observing whales and dolphins (cetaceans) in their natural habitat. Whale watching is mostly a recreational activity (cf. birdwatching), but it can also serve scientific and/or educational purposes.Hoyt, E. ...

s are popular among the region to observe mainly

humpback whale The humpback whale (''Megaptera novaeangliae'') is a species of baleen whale. It is a rorqual (a member of the family Balaenopteridae) and is the monotypic taxon, only species in the genus ''Megaptera''. Adults range in length from and weigh u ...

s that come to warm, calm waters around the peninsula during their migration seasons, and some species of

dolphin A dolphin is an aquatic mammal in the cetacean clade Odontoceti (toothed whale). Dolphins belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontopori ...

s such as

pantropical spotted dolphin The pantropical spotted dolphin (''Stenella attenuata'') is a species of dolphin found in all the world's temperate and tropical oceans. The species was beginning to come under threat due to the killing of millions of individuals in tuna Seine f ...

s and

spinner dolphin The spinner dolphin (''Stenella longirostris'') is a small dolphin found in off-shore tropical waters around the world. It is famous for its acrobatic displays in which it rotates around its longitudinal axis as it leaps through the air. It is a ...

s can be found as well.

References

Landforms of Ecuador Geography of Santa Elena Province {{Ecuador-geo-stub