Baffin Bay

Encyclopedia : B : BA : BAF : Baffin Bay

Regions outside Canada (Greenland, Iceland)}}

An iceberg at the edge of the Baffin Bay's sea ice.

Not to be confused with Baffin Bay, Texas.

Baffin Bay (French: Baie de Baffin) is a sea between the Atlantic and Arctic oceans. It is 1,130 km (700 mi) across from north to south. It is not navigable most of the year because of the presence of large numbers of icebergs.

Baffin Bay is an arm of the Arctic Ocean bounded by Baffin Island in the west, Greenland in the east, and Ellesmere Island in the north. It connects to the Atlantic through Davis Strait, and to the Arctic through several narrow channels of Nares Strait. These channels are covered year-round by the polar ice cap.

In the 1800s the bay was an important whaling region.

The British explorer John Davis was the first European to enter the bay in 1585. The bay is named after William Baffin, the first person to navigate the bay, in 1616.

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