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A 'harbor' or 'harbour' (see spelling differences), or 'haven', is a place where ships may shelter from the weather or are stored. Harbors can be man-made or natural. A man-made harbor will have sea walls or breakwaters and may require dredging. A natural harbor is surrounded on most sides by land.
Harbors and ports are often confused. A port is a man-made coastal or riverine facility where boats and ships can load and unload. It may consist of quays, wharfs, jetties, piers and slipways with cranes or ramps. A port may have magazine buildings or warehouses for storage of goods and a transport system, such as railway, road transport or pipeline transport facilities for relaying goods inland.

Contents

Natural harbors

Ice-free harbors

Temporary harbors

Notable harbors

See also

Notes

Natural harbors

A natural harbor is a landform where a part of a body of water is protected and deep enough to furnish anchorage. Natural harbors have long been of great strategic and economic importance. Many of the great cities of the world are located on a natural harbor.

Ice-free harbors

Main articles: Ice-free port

For harbors near the poles, being ice-free is an important advantage, ideally all-year round. Examples are Murmansk (Russia), Petsamo (Russia, formerly Finland), Hammerfest, Vardø, and Prince Rupert (Canada). The southern-most harbor, at Antarctica's Winter Quarters Bay (77°50′S), presents a potentially ice-free harbor, depending upon summer pack ice conditions.^[1]

Temporary harbors

Sometimes a harbor is needed where one isn't available due to damage, such as in times of war. In this case a temporary harbor may be built and transported in pieces to the location. The most notable of these were the two Mulberry harbours used during the D-Day invasion of Normandy in World War II.

Notable harbors

The following places are large natural harbors:

★ Bahia, Salvador, in Brazil

★ Baltimore's Inner Harbor, in Baltimore, Maryland, United States

★ Boston Harbor, in the United States

★ Charleston in the United States

★ Cork Harbour in the Republic of Ireland

★ Durban, in South Africa

★ Falmouth in Cornwall, the United Kingdom

★ Freetown Harbour in Sierra Leone

★ Grand Harbour in Malta

★ Halifax Harbour in Halifax Regional Municipality in Nova Scotia Canada

★ Kingston, in Jamaica

★ Manila Bay in the Philippines

★ Mumbai in India

★ New York Harbor in the United States

★ Oslofjord, Norway

★ Pearl Harbor, west of Honolulu, Hawaii

★ Poole Harbour in Dorset, the United Kingdom

★ Rio de Janeiro, Guanabara Bay, in Brazil

★ San Francisco Bay in the United States

★ San Diego Bay, in San Diego, California

★ Sydney Harbour in Australia

★ Tokyo Bay, in Tokyo, Japan

★ Vancouver, Canada

★ Wellington Harbour, in New Zealand
Artificial harbors are frequently built for use as ports. The largest artificially created harbor is in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
The busiest harbor is the twin Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in the United States.

Other notable harbors include:

★ Port of Antwerp in Flanders

★ Hamburg in Germany

★ Hampton Roads in Virginia, United States

★ Keppel Harbour in Singapore

★ Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong, People's Republic of China (see also List of harbours in Hong Kong)

★ Kaohsiung, Taiwan

★ Keelung, Taiwan

★ Manukau Harbour, Auckland, New Zealand

★ Kaipara Harbour, New Zealand

★ Trondheim, Norway

★ Portland Harbour in Dorset, England

★ Belém, Brazil

★ Kahului, Hawaii

★ Zeebrugge Port in Flanders

See also

★ Dock

★ Dockyard

★ Ice pier

★ Marina, List of Marinas

★ Port

★ Quay

★ Seaport, List of seaports

★ Wharf

★ Boyd's Automatic tide signalling apparatus

Notes

1. U.S. Polar Programs National Science Foundation FY2000.