Port Phillip

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Port Phillip (Kulin: Naarm), also commonly referred to as Port Phillip Bay, is a horsehead-shaped bay on the central coastline of southern Victoria, Australia. The bay opens into the Bass Strait through a narrow channel known as The Rip, and is surrounded mostly by metropolitan Greater Melbourne in its main eastern portion north of the Mornington Peninsula, and the city of Greater Geelong in the much smaller western portion north of the Bellarine Peninsula. Geographically, the bay covers 1,930 square kilometres (480,000 acres) and the shore stretches roughly 264 km (164 mi), with the volume of water around 25 cubic kilometres (6.0 cu mi). Most of the bay is navigable, although it is extremely shallow for its size — the deepest portion is only 24 metres (79 ft) and half the bay is shallower than 8 m (26 ft).
Before European settlement, the area around Port Phillip was divided between the territories of the Wathaurong (to the west), Wurundjeri (north) and Boonwurrung (south and east) Nations. Its waters and coast are home to seals, whales, dolphins, corals and many kinds of seabirds and migratory waders.
The first Europeans to enter the bay were the crews of HMS Lady Nelson, commanded by John Murray and, ten weeks later, HMS Investigator commanded by Matthew Flinders, in 1802. Subsequent expeditions into the bay took place in 1803 to establish the first settlement in Victoria, near Sorrento, but was abandoned in 1804. Thirty years later, settlers from Tasmania returned to establish Melbourne (now Victoria's capital city) at the mouth of the Yarra River in 1835, and Geelong at Corio Bay in 1838. Today, Port Phillip is the most densely populated catchment in Australia with an estimated 4.5 million people living around the bay; Melbourne's suburbs extend around much of the northern and eastern shorelines, and the city of Geelong sprawls around Corio Bay, in the bay's western arm.