Guinea, Gulf of

Guinea, Gulf of (gĭn`ē), large open arm of the Atlantic Ocean formed by the great bend of the coast of W Africa. It extends from the western coast of Côte d'Ivoire to the Gabon estuary and is bounded on the south by the equator. The bights of Benin and Biafra belong to the gulf. The exploitation of major offshore oil deposits began in the late 1990s. There are also metal ore deposits. Islands in the gulf include Bioko (formerly Fernando Po), São Tomé, and Principe.

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Guinea, Gulf of 

located in the Atlantic Ocean on the coast of equatorial Africa between Cape Palmas (Liberia) in the north and Palmeirinhas Point (Angola) in the south. Area, 1,533,000 sq km. In the extreme northeast the Gulf of Guinea splits into two bights—Biafra and Benin. There are islands in the Gulf of Guinea that are of mainland and volcanic origin, including Fernando Póo, Principe, and Sāo Tomé. The maximum depth is 6,363 m, and the water temperature is 25°-27° C. The salinity is 34-35 parts per thousand, but near the mouths of rivers, such as the Niger, Volta, Ogooué, and Congo, it drops to 20-30 parts per thousand. Tides are semidiurnal, and their maximum height is 2.7 m. Chief ports on the Gulf of Guinea are Tema, Accra, and Takoradi (Ghana), Lomé (Togo), Lagos (Nigeria), Libreville (Gabon), Pointe-Noire (Zaire), and Luanda (Angola).