Natural harbours
- Thread starter stormbind
- Start date
sydhe
King of Kongs
Rhodes, certainly. I assume you don't mean big islands like Sicily and Cyprus.
jeriko one
Exalted Fleetlord
Truk had a naval base but I do not know if it was a natural harbour.
Well, I'm trying to see if Great Britain had a geographic advantage, esp. for 15th through 19th Century technologies.
An island has defensive advantages in that it's difficult to reach, but there are loads of islands.
Not so many islands have sufficient natural resources and green pastures to sustain a substancial population indefinately.
Natural harbours provide protection to navies, training in seamanship, and a base of operations. Thus a very large natural harbour would have heavy influence.
Great Britain happens to have a unique combination, but I'm looking for other islands which could have performed similarly.
Though very quaint, here's the oposite of what I seek..
Candidates might include Honshua, New Guinea, Borneo, Madagascar, etc. but I don't know their geographies well
An island has defensive advantages in that it's difficult to reach, but there are loads of islands.
Not so many islands have sufficient natural resources and green pastures to sustain a substancial population indefinately.
Natural harbours provide protection to navies, training in seamanship, and a base of operations. Thus a very large natural harbour would have heavy influence.
Great Britain happens to have a unique combination, but I'm looking for other islands which could have performed similarly.
Though very quaint, here's the oposite of what I seek..
Candidates might include Honshua, New Guinea, Borneo, Madagascar, etc. but I don't know their geographies well
Britain has good to excellent harbors about every fifty miles (80 km) of coast. Portsmouth/Southampton is protected by the Isle of Wight, that that's hardly the only harbor. London is a major port, as are Liverpool, Bristol and Glasgow.
sydhe
King of Kongs
Portsmouth is in an excellent location with regard to France.
Japan has a lot of great harbors. The Mongols tried to capture one of them in their 13th century invasions. We dropped atomic bombs on another couple. Yokohama's another one, but not for the invasion of Korea. The big differences are (1) Japan is a lot farther from the mainland, and (2) the nearby mainland is a peninsula comparable in size to Japan, and with two-thirds as many people.
Japan has a lot of great harbors. The Mongols tried to capture one of them in their 13th century invasions. We dropped atomic bombs on another couple. Yokohama's another one, but not for the invasion of Korea. The big differences are (1) Japan is a lot farther from the mainland, and (2) the nearby mainland is a peninsula comparable in size to Japan, and with two-thirds as many people.
Verbose
Deity
Technically Norway isn't an island, but all those mountains form a preetty efficient barrier. You just don't walk into Norway. You hardly walk an army inside Norway. (Despite the traditional Norwegian hiking craze.)
Which is why king Olaf Tryggvasson, back towards the end of the Viking age, observed that the only way to rule Norway was from the deck of a ship. Sailing up and down it being the only way to keep that particular nation together.
Which is why king Olaf Tryggvasson, back towards the end of the Viking age, observed that the only way to rule Norway was from the deck of a ship. Sailing up and down it being the only way to keep that particular nation together.
jonatas
tropicalista
Stormbind, I think it's a stretch to consider Great Britain simply an island. As for natural harbours, Lisbon of course has a fantastic one, created from the Tagus river running into the Atlantic and used for at least 3000 years by seafaring nations (Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Portuguese etc). And remember the earliest Modern European empire and concerted Atlantic exploration was Portuguese.
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
Pearl Harbor, HI is a great island harbor
Thorgalaeg
Deity
Cádiz. His historical importance is obvious. The Cádiz Bay and surroundings is the place in the world with the biggest shipwreck density. In some points there are several layers of shipwrecks from diferent ages. I personally have seen among the rocks and in very shallow waters a huge 18th century anchor surrounded by roman amphora bits.
Nobody
Gangster
Wellington, New Zealand. It has a great harbour
Truk atoll in Micronesia was a major Japanese harbor before and during World War II.
History_Buff
Deity
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Surely Malta and Gibralter must have some decent harbours in them.
Illustrious
Becoming Colonel Blimp
YNCS raises the best point so far on the subject of effects on British history: it's not down to the overall quality of any one harbour, but rather the fact that the English coast has good, sizeable natural harbours at short, regular intervals all along the Channel coast from London in the East to Land's End at the West. *
This was of major importance from the 16th century through to the late 19th century. Whenever the weather in the Channel turned rough, British vessels could always rely on somewhere near, safe and friendly to ride out the storm.
Compare and contrast the Channel and Biscay coastlines of France, which have some very good harbours, but widely spaced apart. Or the northern coast of Spain, which has little in the way of secure roadsteads.
This factor contributed greatly to the victory over the Armada, the ability of the Royal Navy to mount a cripplingly effective blockade on France for years at a time, and the simple fact that the Channel became a British-controlled chokepoint for several centuries.
* people tend to focus a lot on Portsmouth, but for a large part of the French wars Carrick Roads (Falmouth) was almost as important strategically, for its position as a very well sheltered deep-water harbour at the very edge of the western approaches. And if you couldn't reach Portsmouth or Falmouth, there was always Torbay and Weymouth in between...
This was of major importance from the 16th century through to the late 19th century. Whenever the weather in the Channel turned rough, British vessels could always rely on somewhere near, safe and friendly to ride out the storm.
Compare and contrast the Channel and Biscay coastlines of France, which have some very good harbours, but widely spaced apart. Or the northern coast of Spain, which has little in the way of secure roadsteads.
This factor contributed greatly to the victory over the Armada, the ability of the Royal Navy to mount a cripplingly effective blockade on France for years at a time, and the simple fact that the Channel became a British-controlled chokepoint for several centuries.
* people tend to focus a lot on Portsmouth, but for a large part of the French wars Carrick Roads (Falmouth) was almost as important strategically, for its position as a very well sheltered deep-water harbour at the very edge of the western approaches. And if you couldn't reach Portsmouth or Falmouth, there was always Torbay and Weymouth in between...
Che Guava
The Juicy Revolutionary
halifax!
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