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Port Phillip (also commonly referred to as Port Phillip Bay or (locally) just The Bay), is a large bay in southern Victoria, Australia; it is the location of Melbourne. Geographically, the bay covers and the shore stretches roughly . Although it is extremely shallow for its size, most of the bay is navigable. The deepest portion is only , and half the region is shallower than . The volume of the water in the bay is around . Prior to British 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 British to enter the bay were the crews of , commanded by John Murray and, ten weeks later, 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 the state'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. ==Prehistory== Port Phillip Bay formed between the end of the last Ice Age around 8000 BCE and around 6000 BCE, when the sea-level rose to drown what was then the lower reaches of the Yarra River, vast river plains, wetlands and lakes. The Yarra and other tributaries flowed down what is now the middle of the bay, formed a lake in the southern reaches of the bay, dammed by The Heads, subsequently pouring out into Bass Strait. The Aboriginal people were in occupation of the area long before the bay was formed, having arrived at least 20,000 years ago and possibly 40,000 years ago. Large piles of semi-fossilised sea-shells known as middens, can still be seen in places around the shoreline, marking the spots where Aboriginal people held feasts. They made a good living from the abundant sea-life, which included penguins and seals. In the cold season they wore possum-skin cloaks and elaborate feathered head-dresses. A dry period combined with sand bar formation, may have dried the bay out as recently as between 800 BCE and 1000 CE. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Port Phillip」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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