Bay

A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that connects directly to a larger body of water such as an ocean, a lake or another bay. A very large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound or bight, a small circular bay with a narrow entrance is a cove, and an elongated bay cut by glaciers is a fjord. Some bays are the estuaries of rivers, as Chesapeake Bay is for the Susquehanna River, and bays can be nested inside one another, as James Bay is an arm of Hudson Bay. Bays range from modest inlets to enormous features such as the Bay of Bengal and Hudson Bay. Surrounding land often weakens winds and blocks waves, so many bays offer sheltered anchorage. That shelter made bays important for early fishing settlements and later for ports and sea trade.