Monterey Bay is a bay of the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the conti ...

located on the coast of the U.S. state of

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, south of the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area G ...

and its major city at the south of the bay, San Jose.

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

itself is further north along the coast, by about 75 miles, accessible via

Highway 1 The following highways are numbered 1. For roads numbered A1, see list of A1 roads. For roads numbered B1, see list of B1 roads. For roads numbered M1, see List of M1 roads. For roads numbered N1, see list of N1 roads. For roads numbered S ...

and Highway 280. Santa Cruz is located at the north end of the bay, and

Monterey Monterey (; es, Monterrey; Ohlone: ) is a city located in Monterey County on the southern edge of Monterey Bay on the U.S. state of California's Central Coast. Founded on June 3, 1770, it functioned as the capital of Alta California under bot ...

is on the

Monterey Peninsula The Monterey Peninsula anchors the northern portion on the Central Coast of California and comprises the cities of Monterey, Carmel, and Pacific Grove, and the resort and community of Pebble Beach. History Monterey Monterey was founded i ...

at the south end. The "Monterey Bay Area" is a local colloquialism sometimes used to describe the whole of the Central Coast communities of Santa Cruz and

counties.

Toponymy

The first

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

an to discover Monterey Bay was

Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo ( pt, João Rodrigues Cabrilho; c. 1499 – January 3, 1543) was an Iberian maritime explorer best known for investigations of the West Coast of North America, undertaken on behalf of the Spanish Empire. He was the firs ...

on November 16, 1542, while sailing northward along the coast on a Spanish naval expedition. He named the bay ''Bahía de los Pinos'', probably because of the forest of pine trees first encountered while rounding the

peninsula A peninsula (; ) is a landform that extends from a mainland and is surrounded by water on most, but not all of its borders. A peninsula is also sometimes defined as a piece of land bordered by water on three of its sides. Peninsulas exist on a ...

at the southern end of the bay. Cabrillo's name for the bay was lost, but the westernmost point of the peninsula is still known as Point Pinos. On December 10, 1595, Sebastián Rodríguez Cermeño crossed the bay and bestowed the name ''Bahía de San Pedro'' in honor of Saint Peter Martyr. The present name for the bay was given in 1602 by

Sebastián Vizcaíno Sebastián Vizcaíno (1548–1624) was a Spanish soldier, entrepreneur, explorer, and diplomat whose varied roles took him to New Spain, the Baja California peninsula, the California coast and Asia. Early career Vizcaíno was born in 154 ...

, who had been tasked by the Spanish government to complete a detailed chart of the coast. On December 16, 1602 he rounded a large peninsula and entered a bay that he named ''Puerto de Monterrey'' in honor of Don Gaspár de Zúñiga y Acevedo, 5th Count of Monterrey, who was governor of

New Spain New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( es, Virreinato de Nueva España, ), or Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain during the Spanish colonization of the A ...

and had dispatched the expedition. Monterrey is an alternate spelling of Monterrei, a municipality in the Galicia region of

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , ...

from which the viceroy and his father (the Fourth Count of Monterrei) originated. Cormorant Condo in Monterey, CA

All other place names in the vicinity containing ''Monterey'' were so named because of their proximity to the bay. This includes the

Presidio of Monterey The Presidio of Monterey (POM), located in Monterey, California, is an active US Army installation with historic ties to the Spanish colonial era. Currently, it is the home of the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLI-FLC). ...

, City of Monterey, County of Monterey and Monterey Canyon.

Geology

The Monterey Canyon, one of the largest underwater canyons in the world, begins off the coast of Moss Landing, in the center of Monterey Bay. It is long, although its shape changes regularly because of currents and sediment being left in the area. The canyon is much like that of a continental slope; the biology of the canyon changes significantly in different parts of the canyon.

Flora and fauna

Monterey Bay is home to many species of

marine mammal Marine mammals are aquatic mammals that rely on the ocean and other marine ecosystems for their existence. They include animals such as seals, whales, manatees, sea otters and polar bears. They are an informal group, unified only by their ...

s, including

sea otter The sea otter (''Enhydra lutris'') is a marine mammal native to the coasts of the northern and eastern North Pacific Ocean. Adult sea otters typically weigh between , making them the heaviest members of the weasel family, but among the smal ...

harbor seal The harbor (or harbour) seal (''Phoca vitulina''), also known as the common seal, is a true seal found along temperate and Arctic marine coastlines of the Northern Hemisphere. The most widely distributed species of pinniped (walruses, eared se ...

s, and

bottlenose dolphin Bottlenose dolphins are aquatic mammals in the genus ''Tursiops.'' They are common, cosmopolitan members of the family Delphinidae, the family of oceanic dolphins. Molecular studies show the genus definitively contains two species: the comm ...

s; as well as being on the migratory path of

gray Grey (more common in British English) or gray (more common in American English) is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning literally that it is "without color", because it can be compose ...

and

humpback whale The humpback whale (''Megaptera novaeangliae'') is a species of baleen whale. It is a rorqual (a member of the family Balaenopteridae) and is the only species in the genus ''Megaptera''. Adults range in length from and weigh up to . The hu ...

s and a breeding site for elephant seals.

Killer whale The orca or killer whale (''Orcinus orca'') is a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family, of which it is the largest member. It is the only extant species in the genus ''Orcinus'' and is recognizable by its black-and-white pat ...

s are also found along the coast, especially when gray whales migrate, as they hunt the whales during their migration north. Many species of

fish Fish are Aquatic animal, aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack Limb (anatomy), limbs with Digit (anatomy), digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and Chondrichthyes, cartilaginous and bony fish as we ...

, sharks,

mollusk Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is e ...

s such as

abalone Abalone ( or ; via Spanish , from Rumsen ''aulón'') is a common name for any of a group of small to very large marine gastropod molluscs in the family Haliotidae. Other common names are ear shells, sea ears, and, rarely, muttonfish or mutto ...

and

squid True squid are molluscs with an elongated soft body, large eyes, eight arms, and two tentacles in the superorder Decapodiformes, though many other molluscs within the broader Neocoleoidea are also called squid despite not strictly fittin ...

, birds, and sea turtles also live in the bay. Several varieties of

kelp Kelps are large brown algae seaweeds that make up the order Laminariales. There are about 30 different genera. Despite its appearance, kelp is not a plant - it is a heterokont, a completely unrelated group of organisms. Kelp grows in "underwa ...

grow in the bay, some becoming as tall as trees, forming what is known as a

kelp forest Kelp forests are underwater areas with a high density of kelp, which covers a large part of the world's coastlines. Smaller areas of anchored kelp are called kelp beds. They are recognized as one of the most productive and dynamic ecosystems on Ea ...

Marine protected areas

Soquel Canyon State Marine Conservation Area Soquel Canyon State Marine Conservation Area (SMCA) is an offshore marine protected area in Monterey Bay. Monterey Bay is on California’s central coast with the city of Monterey at its south end and the city of Santa Cruz at its north end. T ...

, Portuguese Ledge State Marine Conservation Area, Pacific Grove Marine Gardens State Marine Conservation Area,

Lovers Point State Marine Reserve Lovers Point State Marine Reserve (SMR) is one of four small marine protected areas located near the cities of Monterey and Pacific Grove, at the southern end of Monterey Bay on California’s central coast. The four MPAs together encompass . ...

, Edward F. Ricketts State Marine Conservation Area and Asilomar State Marine Reserve are marine protected areas in Monterey Bay. Like underwater parks, these marine protected areas help conserve ocean wildlife and marine ecosystems.

Communities around Monterey Bay

Clockwise around the bay, generally from north to south. Inland communities are indented: * Santa Cruz ** Live Oak * Capitola ** Soquel *

Aptos Aptos (Ohlone languages, Ohlone for "The People") is an unincorporated area, unincorporated town in Santa Cruz County, California. The town is made up of several small villages, which together form Aptos: Aptos Hills-Larkin Valley, Aptos Village, ...

* Rio del Mar * La Selva Beach ** Corralitos **

Freedom Freedom is understood as either having the ability to act or change without constraint or to possess the power and resources to fulfill one's purposes unhindered. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving one ...

Watsonville Watsonville is a city in Santa Cruz County, California, located in the Monterey Bay Area of the Central Coast of California. The population was 52,590 according to the 2020 census. Predominantly Latino and Democratic, Watsonville is a self- ...

** Pajaro ** Las Lomas ** Elkhorn * Moss Landing ** Castroville ** Salinas *

Marina A marina (from Spanish , Portuguese and Italian : ''marina'', "coast" or "shore") is a dock or basin with moorings and supplies for yachts and small boats. A marina differs from a port in that a marina does not handle large passenger ships or ...

* Seaside **''

Fort Ord Fort Ord is a former United States Army post on Monterey Bay of the Pacific Ocean coast in California, which closed in 1994 due to Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) action. Most of the fort's land now makes up the Fort Ord National Monument, ...

'' * Sand City ** Del Rey Oaks *

* New Monterey * Pacific Grove * Carmel ** Carmel Valley * Carmel Highlands

In popular culture

Apple's desktop operating system,

macOS Monterey macOS Monterey (version 12) is the eighteenth major release of macOS, Apple's desktop operating system for Macintosh computers. The successor to macOS Big Sur, it was announced at WWDC 2021 on June 7, 2021, and released on October 25, 20 ...

, is named after this region.

Gallery

Image:Old cannery on Monterey Bay.JPG, Monterey Bay seen with the old Cannery Foundations Image:Beach Monterey.JPG, One of many beaches along the Monterey Bay coast line Image:Montereybay.jpg, Monterey Bay as seen from Soquel, California. The Moss Landing

power plant A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electrical grid. Many ...

is visible in the distance. Image:SCUBA diving lessons.JPG,

Scuba diving Scuba diving is a mode of underwater diving whereby divers use breathing equipment that is completely independent of a surface air supply. The name "scuba", an acronym for " Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus", was coined by Chr ...

lessons in the bay, near

Monterey, California Monterey (; es, Monterrey; Ohlone: ) is a city located in Monterey County on the southern edge of Monterey Bay on the U.S. state of California's Central Coast. Founded on June 3, 1770, it functioned as the capital of Alta California under b ...

File:Bierstadt Albert Bay of Monterey.jpg,

Albert Bierstadt Albert Bierstadt (January 7, 1830 – February 18, 1902) was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. He joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion to paint the scenes. He was not ...

, "Bay of Monterey", oil on paper, undated File:Aerial view - Santa Cruz CA.jpg, Aerial view of the north end of Monterey Bay at Santa Cruz

References

External links

*
Live Monterey Bay Web CamMonterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary website
{{Authority control Bays of California Bays of the Pacific Ocean Bodies of water of Monterey County, California Bodies of water of Santa Cruz County, California Regions of California Geography of Northern California Geography of Monterey County, California Geography of San Benito County, California Geography of Santa Cruz County, California Birdwatching sites in the United States Northern California Tourism regions of California