Gulf of Guinea

The Gulf of Guinea (French: Golfe de Guinée; Spanish: Golfo de Guinea; Portuguese: Golfo da Guiné) is the northeasternmost part of the tropical Atlantic Ocean from Cape Lopez in Gabon, north and west to Cape Palmas in Liberia. Null Island, defined as the intersection of the Equator and Prime Meridian (zero degrees latitude and longitude), is in the gulf.

Among the many rivers that drain into the Gulf of Guinea are the Niger and the Volta. The coastline on the gulf includes the Bight of Benin and the Bight of Bonny.

"Guinea" is thought to have originated from a local name for an area in the region, although the specifics are disputed. Bovill (1995) gives a thorough description:

The name Guinea is usually said to have been a corrupt form of the name Ghana, picked up by the Portuguese in the Maghrib. The present writer finds this unacceptable. The name Guinea has been in use both in the Maghrib and in Europe long before Prince Henry's time. For example, on a map dated about 1320 by the Genoese cartographer Giovanni di Carignano, who got his information about Africa from a fellow-countryman in Sijilmassa [ancient trading city in North Africa], we find Gunuia, and in the Catalan atlas of 1375 as Ginyia. A passage in Leo [Africanus] (vol. III, 822) points to Guinea having been a corrupt form of Jenne [2,000-year-old city in central Mali on Niger river], less famous than Ghana but nevertheless for many centuries famed in the Maghrib as a great market and a seat of learning. The relevant passage reads: "The Kingdom of Ghinea . . . called by the merchants of our nation Gheneoa, by the natural inhabitants thereof Genni and by the Portugals and other people of Europe Ghinea." But it seems more probable that Guinea derives from aguinaou, the Berber for Negro. Marrakech [city in southeastern Morocco] has a gate, built in the twelfth century, called the Bab Aguinaou, the Gate of the Negro (Delafosse, Haut-Sénégal-Niger, II, 277–278). The modern application of the name Guinea to the coast dates only from 1481. In that year the Portuguese built a fort, São Jorge da Mina (modern-day Elmina), on the Gold Coast region, and their king, John II, was permitted by the Pope [Sixtus II or Innocent VIII] to style himself Lord of Guinea, a title that survived until the recent extinction of the monarchy.

The name "Guinea" was also previously applied to the south coast of West Africa (north of the Gulf of Guinea), which became known as "Upper Guinea", and to the west coast of Southern Africa (to the east), which became known as "Lower Guinea".^{[citation needed]}

Today, the word "Guinea" is found in the names of three countries in Africa (Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, and Equatorial Guinea), and in one country in Melanesia (Papua New Guinea).

The main river dispensing its waters in the gulf is the Niger River.

Different definitions of the geographic limits of the Gulf of Guinea are given; the International Hydrographic Organization defines the southwest extent of the Gulf of Guinea as "B line from Cap Lopez (0°37′S 8°43′E / 0.617°S 8.717°E / -0.617; 8.717), in Gabon, northwestward to Ihléu Gago Coutinho (Ilhéu das Rôlas) (0°01′S 6°32′E / 0.017°S 6.533°E / -0.017; 6.533); and thence a line from Ihléu Gago Coutinho northwestward to Cape Palmas (4°22′N 7°44′W / 4.367°N 7.733°W / 4.367; -7.733), in Liberia.