Walvis Bay

Walvis Bay is a city in Namibia and the name of the bay on which it lies, the second largest city in the country and its largest coastal city, covering 29 square kilometers of land. Its harbor, protected by the Pelican Point sand spit, is the only natural deep-water harbor along Namibia's coast, and its plankton-rich waters draw large numbers of southern right whales along with the whalers and fishing vessels that historically followed them. Discovered by the outside world in 1485, the harbor's strategic value on the sea route around the Cape of Good Hope drew a succession of colonial powers, and for much of its history Walvis Bay was governed as an exclave separate from the rest of what is now Namibia. Situated just north of the Tropic of Capricorn in the Kuiseb River delta, the city is an important center of tourism, with attractions including the artificial Bird Island guano-collection site, the Dune 7 sand dune, salt works and abundant birdlife, and its Export Processing Zone is a significant part of the local economy.