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Shark Bay, Western Australia*
UNESCO World Heritage Site
State Party	Australia
Type	Natural
Criteria	vii, viii, ix, x
Reference	578
Region†	Asia-Pacific
Inscription History
Inscription	1991  (15th Session)
* Name as inscribed on World Heritage List. † Region as classified by UNESCO.

Shark Bay is a world heritage site and a locality in the Gascoyne region of Western Australia. It is located at approximately 25°30′S 113°30′ECoordinates: 25°30′S 113°30′E, over 800 km north of Perth, on the westernmost point of Australia. It was named by William Dampier, one of the first Europeans to visit Australia in July 1699. Shark Bay lays claim to being the first place of European contact in all Australia with Dirk Hartog's landing in 1616 and thus the first place of 'discovery' in a formal and documented manner by the outside world.

The bay's western arm is called Denham Sound.

Shark Bay may refer to:

• the bay itself, along with its peninsulas and numerous islands
• the Shire of Shark Bay
• the Shark Bay World Heritage Site
• the Shark Bay Marine Park.

It may help the reader to understand the reality of such isolated and vast localities of Australia by comparing it to a country of an equivalent area in Europe such as Wales: Shark Bay is about the same size but has a population of fewer than 1,000 people and a coastline of over 1,500 kilometres. The half dozen small communities making up this population occupy less than 1% of the total area.

The bay itself covers an area of 10,000 km², with an average depth of 10 metres. It is divided by shallow banks and has many peninsulas and islands. The coastline is over 1,500 km long. It is located in the transition zone between three major climatic regions and between two major botanical provinces.

Dirk Hartog Island is of major historic significance due to early explorers landing upon it.

Shark Bay is an area of major zoological importance. It is home to about 10,000 dugongs (sea cows), and there are many dolphins, particularly at Monkey Mia. The area supports 26 threatened Australian mammal species, over 230 species of bird, and nearly 150 species of reptile. It is an important breeding and nursery ground for fishes, crustaceans, and coelenterates. There are 323 fish species, with many sharks and rays.

Some Bottlenose Dolphins in Shark Bay exhibit the only known case of tool use in marine mammals: they protect their beak with a sponge while searching for food in the sandy sea bottom. Apparently, mothers teach their daughters how to do this.

Shark Bay has the largest known area of seagrass, with seagrass meadows covering over 4000 km² of the bay. It includes the 1030 km² Wooramel Seagrass Bank, the largest seagrass bank in the world. Shark Bay also contains the largest number of seagrass species ever recorded in one place; twelve species have been found, with up to nine occurring together in some places.

At Hamelin Pool in the south of the bay, living microbes are building stromatolites that are over 3000 years old. The Hamelin Pool contains the most diverse and abundant examples of stromatolite forms in the world.

Map of Shark Bay area

Shark Bay was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1991. The site covers an area of 23,000 square kilometres. It includes many protected areas and conservation reserves, including Shark Bay Marine Park, Francois Peron National Park, Hamelin Pool Marine Nature Reserve, Zuytdorp Nature Reserve and numerous protected islands. Denham and Useless Loop both fall within the boundary of the site but are specifically excluded from it. Shark Bay was the first to be classified on the Australian World Heritage list.

Shark Bay is a large shallow inlet located at the westernmost point of Australia, some 650 kilometres north of the city of Perth. In 1969, Dutch explorer Francois Pelsaert branded this desert area "a bare and cursed country, devoid of green or grass". Later visitors recorded their impressions with such names as Hopeless Reach, Useless Inlet, and Disappointment Loop. Today though, over 120000 people flock to Shark Bay annually.

Pelsaert would have found his grass meadows if he had looked under the water, for Shark Bay contains the largest and most diverse seagrass meadow in the world, over 4000 square kilometres in all. The Wooramel Seagrass Bank alone stretches 130 kilometres along the eastern arm of Shark Bay.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Shark Bay

Official websites

• Shire of Shark Bay
• Shark Bay World Heritage Area
• The Shark Bay Herald

Additional information

• UNESCO World Heritage Centre: Shark Bay, Western Australia

This article does not cite any references or sources. (November 2007) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

v • d • e World Heritage Sites in Australia

Australian fossil mammal sites at Naracoorte and Riversleigh · Blue Mountains · Fraser Island · Gondwana Rainforests of Australia · Great Barrier Reef · Heard Island and McDonald Islands · Kakadu National Park · Lord Howe Island Group · Macquarie Island · Purnululu National Park · Royal Exhibition Building and Carlton Gardens · Shark Bay · Sydney Opera House · Tasmanian Wilderness · Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park · Wet Tropics of Queensland · Willandra Lakes Region