Cintra Bay or the Gulf of Cintra is a large, half-moon shaped bay on the coast of Río de Oro province, Western Sahara. It is located about 120 km (75 mi) south of Dakhla. Its coastline is sparsely populated, and the environment is mostly wild and undeveloped. Originally called "St. Cyprian's Bay", it was renamed after Captain Gonçalo de Sintra, a 15th-century Portuguese explorer who was thought to have met his death in the bay during an unauthorized, unsuccessful slave raid.

Dakhla is a city in the disputed territory of Western Sahara, currently occupied by Morocco. It is the capital of the claimed Moroccan administrative region Dakhla-Oued Ed-Dahab. It has a population of 106,277 and is on a narrow peninsula of the Atlantic Coast, the Río de Oro Peninsula, about 550 km (340 mi) south of Laayoune.