Talk:Harbor

Move Talk:Harbour
Can someone move Talk:Harbour back over here?--Cúchullain t/ c 20:53, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Biggest artifical harbour
Rotterdam (the Netherlands) WAS the biggest artifical harbour in the world from 1962 to 2004, but is surpassed by the harbour of Shanghai now. See Dutch wiki> 'haven van rotterdam' for a top 10 of biggest harbours in the world.

Magazine building
What exactly is a "magazine building" refered to in the first section? I am unfamiliar with this term, and a quick search on WP & the web didn't turn up any definitions, but I didn't want to remove it in case it is a familiar term in other parts of the world. Johnb210 18:22, 28 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I live in England and I have no idea what a magazine building is! - Adrian Pingstone

A magazine is a store such as a warehouse. It is a very common Flemish and Dutch word. The nearest English comparison I would make would be a magazine for ammunition. MalcolmSm1th (talk) 04:48, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Impounded Harbours
How about a section on impounded harbo(u)rs. John Yeadon --JohnYeadon 00:10, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Harbor Articles
Many of the cities on the natural harbor list have their own articles dedicated to the harbors - should we change the links from the main city article to the harbor? See Boston Harbor and New York Harbor as examples CSZero 15:25, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Notable Harbors
From the long list of notable harbors, I failed to find any single one from the mainland China. While when I opened another page "List of world's busiest ports by cargo tonnage", There're five from the mainland China ranked in top 10 in the world by cargo tonnage, and 8 in top 20. So I guess this section should be renamed as "Notable Harbors beyond the Mainland China".

And as to "The busiest harbor is the twin Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach in southern California in the United States", they can be found nowhere in the list by cargo tonnage, and could only be in No.5 in the List of busiest container ports if put together. So I do think this section is made of poor quality and some citations should be needed here. Derekjoe (talk) 18:56, 26 January 2009 (UTC)derekjoe

Definition
arent all harbours (partially) surrounded by ground ? The article doesnt state this. Also, it should mention that a harbor is a type of seaport (surrounded by ground) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.245.79.192 (talk) 16:28, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

It would be helpful to define other parts of the harbor, such as, what is the head of a harbor? I see on maps, for example north head, and south head, denoting the jutting land masses at the entrance to a harbor--so what defines a 'head'? what defines the 'mouth'. Klossoke (talk) 14:56, 1 December 2019 (UTC)klossoke

Page name
Whys was this article's spelling changed from the original harbour to the current harbor? - it was previously in the original UK and Commonwealth spelling but was moved in 2006.


 * The move history is confusing. Please see Talk:Harbour where it seems to have been named Harbor in 2004. In any case, 3-5 years have passed and some of the edit history has been lost, so it is probably a little late to bring this up. VMS Mosaic (talk) 02:23, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Bay and Harbor
Can a bay be a harbor, and can a harbor be a bay? Neither of those articles makes reference to that, but I'd like to know how this could be defined. Does anybody know? Schwede66 (talk) 05:52, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Largest Harbour
It is claimed here that Mumbai is the World's Largest Natural Harbour. The Wikipedia entry for Sydney,Australia claims that Port Jackson (aka Sydney Harbour) is the largest. Can somebody research this and correct one or the other (I don't know the answer myself). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.41.133.81 (talk) 06:28, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

This entry also states "Kaipara Harbour, New Zealand, believed to be the worlds largest natural harbour".There is obviously some confusion on this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.80.123.38 (talk) 06:16, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

The article gives San Francisco Bay as an example as an example of a natural harbor. The Wikipedia entry for San Francisco Bay puts it at somewhere between 1,040 to 4,160 square kilometers, the entry for Kaipara Harbour gives 409 square kilometres at high tide, and finally 55 square kilometres is given for Port Jackson. Unfortunately I have not found a number for Mumbai either on Wikipedia or elsewhere on the web. I would think that at over 1,000 square kilometers San Francisco Bay would have this one covered.


 * I don't know how you define a harbour. The only referrable source I can find saying anything is [|here], which is hardly a wonderful source.  If you're including anything called a "bay" though, then Hudson Bay is enormous, and if it's any area of sea enclosed by land with just a little opening, then you'd have to include the Mediterranean / Black Seas, which together would be easily the largest.  Maybe we need a bit of a tighter definition of what a harbour is. 92.21.143.70 (talk) 22:18, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Removed merge tag
Removed. A port may be in a harbor, but not all harbors have ports. Northamerica1000 (talk) 13:40, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Ports and harbo(u)rs
Following on from the above, there does appear to be a contradiction in the definition of a port and a harbor at these two articles. The harbor article says "Harbors and ports are often confused with each other. A port is a facility for loading and unloading vessels; ports are usually located in harbors." whereas the port article says "a port is a location on a coast or shore containing one or more harbors where ships can dock and transfer people or cargo to or from land." So is a port part of a harbour or vice versa?

Looking at the latest Oxford Dictionary of English (which is international) it has the following:


 * harbour (US: harbor)... a place on the coast where ships may moor in shelter, especially one protected from rough water by piers, jetties and other artificial structures.


 * port: a town or city with a harbour or access to navigable water where ships load or unload. ♦ a harbour: (as modifier) Belfast's port facilities

Thoughts? Bermicourt (talk) 18:31, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, port is not a city or town with a harbour, but a harbour said in Old French borrowed from Latin, meaning gateway. Crock81 (talk) 05:53, 26 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Technically a 'port' has Customs facilities which a 'harbour' doesn't necessarily possess. The same applies to airport as opposed to aerodrome. One has Customs, the other doesn't. Ports also often have Immigration facilities as well, so you can get your passport stamped.Everybody got to be somewhere! (talk) 17:41, 16 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Obviously common usage has extended these terms outside the ones stated above, so harbours only handling internal traffic and trade are often called 'ports', however the above is the official distinction. So if a harbour authority has 'Port' in it's official title - e.g., Port of London Authority - then you can be fairly sure it has Customs facilities - important to know if you are travelling internationally.


 * The customs facilities argument fails in areas such as the Mediterranean, where virtually every marina has its own customs officials.

External links modified (January 2018)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Harbor. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20140223191432/http://geology.campus.ad.csulb.edu/people/bperry/geology303/geol303chapter8.html to http://geology.campus.ad.csulb.edu/people/bperry/geology303/geol303chapter8.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20081221123213/http://aapa.files.cms-plus.com/Statistics/worldportrankings_2006.xls to http://aapa.files.cms-plus.com/Statistics/worldportrankings%5F2006.xls

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 16:27, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

In the interest of WP:GLOBAL, could we have more examples and pictures from the Global South? Most if not all of the current ones are Northern.
Vandergay (talk) 01:53, 25 October 2019 (UTC)