Talk:Poole Harbour

It's...?
Doesn't the It's man from Monty Python's Flying Circus stagger out of Poole Harbour at the start of the first episode - and if so, is it worth mentioning here?
 * - Astatine 19:02, 1 August 2006 (UTC)


 * You're thinking of Studland. Joe D (t) 21:05, 1 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I put in an entry here under Trivia and someone removed it. Silly me, to believe that Michael Palin knew what he was talking about when he identified the location as Poole Harbour in "Pythonland"... Orca99usa ((t) 20:20, 16 May 2007


 * I imagine he said that (asuming he did say that, and not Poole Bay, which would be correct) because it's nearby, and far more famous. If he'd said "Studland" he would have had to explain where Studland is, and I imagine he was more concerned with being concise than being accurate.  Joe D (t) 20:18, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Poole is Big
I also live in Poole, so there may be some bias, however my understanding was that Poole was the largest natural harbour, there is no doubt that Sydney is the largest harbour, but I was lead to believe that it had been extended by man, therefore preventing it from being the largest natural harbour.

In summary, Poole is the largest natural harbour, Sydney the biggest in the world, and most of the other claims to "largness" are false, as they are most likely bays or "sounds" (which have more than one opening to the sea) thus rendering them unable to "harbour" ships.

I should also explain that my judgements are based on my studies, and as a Marine Environmental Scientist, and have had to involve myself in many discussions about harbours and definitions there of, etc so my opinion is based on the facts that are available to me, and other wishing to cite their view on this topic.


 * Well the unsigned contribution above (from 84.45.187.33) may be by a Marine Environmental Scientist living in Poole, but (s)he clearly doesn't know too much about other harbours around the world.


 * Sydney Harbour is entirely natural. It is a ria or flooded river valley, much like those to be found on the south coasts of Devon and Cornwall. It has a single entrance, and very much "harbours" ships. It has a water area of 55 square kilometres.


 * San Francisco Bay is also entirely natural. It has a topography rather similar to that at Poole, with a relatively narrow entrance (spanned by the single span of the Golden Gate Bridge), opening out inside the entrance into a wide expanse of water. Again it harbours ships. It has a water area of 1040 to 4160 square kilometres, depending on exactly how you count the salt marshes and deltas that feed it.


 * According to the article, Poole has a water area of 36 square kilometres. So it seems clear that Sydney Harbour is bigger, which is all that is needed to discount Poole's claim. Personally I think San Francisco Bay trumps Sydney Harbour, but some people claim it is too big to be a harbour. This seems like a cyclical argument to me, but this page is not the place for it. -- Chris j wood 18:55, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Surely the point with SF Bay is that it is a Bay and not a harbour...or is that too obvious? And my experience is that Poole has never been considered the largest in living memory, but rather the second largest after Sydney, a point contended by Cork and Halifax. Ultimately the issue is how we measure the size (surface area, water volume etc), and what constitutes a harbour as opposed to a bay or estuary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.149.8.155 (talk) 22:08, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Lamlash harbour on the Isle of Arran has two openings to the Firth of Clyde and has long been used as a harbour, including by Royal Naval vessels during WWII

Largest harbour etc
Poole Harbour is often locally said to be the largest natural harbour in the world, a claim I've never seen actually justified and seriously doubt. This article contains a modified version, stating it to be the second biggest after Sydney. Actually Sydney Harbour isn't that big, and having been to both I'm a bit surprised it is the bigger. But there are surely many much bigger natural harbours than either of these; Port Phillip, Darwin, Hong Kong and San Francisco Bay all come immediately to mind. I think this claim needs to be either justified or dropped. -- Chris j wood 18:55, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Redirect from Poole Harbour
Why does Poole Harbour redirect here? Shouldn't this page be the one that redirects to Poole Harbour? It seems somebody got it backwards... --Idont Havaname 20:43, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

re: harbour size claims
I live in Poole so have grown up with the various claims. Just from looking at the tourist/promotional material of the places you mention, only Poole and Sydney make any claim on size - Sydney claiming to be the largest and Poole the second. Many years ago, Poole claimed to be roughly the same size as Sydney but dropped that after substantial land reclamation. The only people who still claim it are the boat cruise operators, jokingly. Falmouth, UK claims to be third - have been there and it's definitely much smaller. King George Sound, Australia says it's 'in the top 6' and Kingston, Jamaica says it's 7th. Halifax, Canada is the only one to have put up any argument, consistently claiming to beat the lot, but everyone else classifies it as an estuary, not a harbour. I suspect the same might apply to the others. It's like arguments over the 'biggest island'. For example I've never heard anyone say San Fransisco Bay is a harbour, it seems far too big and open to be able to 'harbour' or shelter shipping. I've never heard of any other 'disputes' or disagreements on these claims. Unfortunately I can't find any official statistics on actual surface areas etc. The most 'authoritative' mention of the Poole claim I could find is on the official website of the UNESCO world heritage site Jurassic Coast, which starts at the harbour entrance.


 * The fact you cannot find a claim for San Francisco Bay probably says more about the fact that San Francisco already has a surfeit of potential unique selling points, and doesn't need another one, than it does about the geography. These sort of claims are almost always espoused with an ulterior motive, and WP should treat them very carefully. San Francisco Bay certainly shelters shipping. In fact, apart from being much bigger, it has a lot in common with Poole Harbour, with a narrow entrance (the Golden Gate) opening out to a wide expanse inside. Sydney Harbour on the other hand is a ria, long and narrow with branching channels, with an entrance not significantly narrower than the rest of the harbour, much like Falmouth or Fowey. -- Chris j wood 10:44, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Poole is about 5-6 miles across in each direction, with an entrance of less than 500m and an enormous coastline, as it's very convuluted. There are two reasons a lot of people find it hard to believe the size claimed for Poole. First, you can't see anything like the whole harbour from any one point, as there are big islands and peninsulas in the way, and unseen bays leading off it. Most people who think they've 'seen' the harbour have only seen a small fraction of it. Secondly is that it's very shallow, so parts of it go to mudflats at low tide and not much of it is navigable by large ships, so it has a relatively small port. Unless someone can find some official list of harbour surface areas, I think the lack of opposition justifies the claim!--Purple 01:16, 28 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Actually I think all this really shows is that 'the largest natural harbour' is too vague a term to be worth pursuing in an encyclopedia. It all depends on how you define a natural harbour. And of course local tourist boards etc use the definition best suited to their claim, which is fine for their purpose but not for ours. The idea that Sydney Harbour/Port Jackson is the biggest natural harbour in the world is laughable; I seriously doubt it is even the largest in metro Sydney (compared with Botany Bay; which incidentally is also the busier commercial port these days). So I've downplayed the claim in the lede. -- Chris j wood 15:15, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

It's often said that Poole Harbour is the second biggest natural harbour in the world after Sydney. It seems to be one of these things that somebody somewhere once said or wrote and has been taken as fact. I am not an expert on world harbours but if you want to do something simple to check for yourself then do this - Go to google maps and find Poole harbour. You'll see a scale bar and from this you can get a rough idea of the size of Poole harbour. Now go to Sydney and see the scale bar. Sydney does indeed seem to be larger than Poole. Now go to the harbour directly north of Sydney and you can see it is bigger than Sydney. Go to Melbourne harbour, it is much bigger than Sydney. Is Mebourne a bay or a harbour? Why isn't Poole harbour a bay? Go to Hobart - is it a harbour? It harbours vessels so it must be. It's considerably larger than Sydney. Now go across the Tasman sea to New Zealand and find Auckland. On the west coast, directly north of Auckland you will find Kaipara Harbour - it's big enough to swallow Sydney and Poole harbours several times over. Manukau harbour, directly south of Auckland, is bigger than Sydney. Wellington Harbour on the southern part of New Zealand's North Island is arguably as big as Sydney and bigger than Poole. Brazil - Rio de Janeiro harbour is bigger than Poole and Sydney. Is it a bay? When is a bay not a bay? It's no less harbour-like than Poole. Houston, U.S. - Trinity bay - is it a harbour? It's bigger than Sydney. San Francisco - much bigger. Do your own world tour and it soon becomes obvious that Sydney is a long way from being the world's biggest harbour.


 * I have added back a "second largest" claim cribbing the text from Cork Harbour which mentions Poole. The Cork Harbour paragraph includes the phrase "by navigational area" but if we add that for Poole, it would come nowhere near second place. — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 09:05, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

Number of islands
The article was previously very definite that there were exactly eight islands in Poole Harbour. But my OS map shows 10 named islands (the eight listed in the article, plus Otter Island and Stone Island) and several unnaamed islands on the southern shore line. I think that to be as definitive as we were, we need to distinguish between islands, rocks, mudbanks, etc and I'm not sure such a test is easy to come by or indeed worth pursuing. Instead I've simply listed the Islands under 'including'. -- Chris j wood 15:07, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

In order to be classified as an island, there has to be some land showing above Highest Astronomical Tide, otherwise it's a sand- or mudbank (as far as I know there are no rocks in the harbour, but I don't have access to a chart at the moment). But is there a minimum size? --TyroSailor (talk) 21:38, 7 August 2018 (UTC)