since youre like, marine geography/biology person, i have a question that has been plaguing me for years:
what is the difference between a gulf and a bay???? i tried looking it up but cant understand lol
Holi! Not a person but a student hehe. It is normal to have this question more than you think and I'm so happy that you asked me! It has more nuance that one would want to admit but basically the difference is based on size and shape. A bay is an inlet of sea towards the continent that is not usually really deep (talking about geographical depth (bathymetry) deep starts around the 100 m-ish) and is usually shaped as a half-moon and water enters through coastal headlands or promontories while gulfs are really big and extend kilometers in their diameter and are usually way deeper
Now, the thing is that for example the gulf of valencia would look like a bay just shape wised while the gulf of Corinth would look like an interior sea such as the Seto sea of Japan.
Both are in the same resolution and both are called gulfs even when having wildly different shapes.
So as my coastal management said. If you can travel it on foot from promontorie to promontory in less than a day is a bay if it takes more than that, is a gulf. But my physical oceanography professor did say that the difference between a sea and a gulf radicates in that in a sea there are many changing and different currents playing in them while a gulf only has a major one.
So not only was an interesting ask, my friend, but more so another way of seeing that there aren't that much differences and that criteria are sometimes subjective and do change with times, for example some gulfs were called seas and now are just gulfs too! I hope this has helped you a little bit at least.
As a rule of thumb, a bay is small enough to be able to be walked around in less than a day is a bay, if not a gulf and if it is really prominent on a map is undoubtly a gulf.
