1.
Tamil Nadu
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Tamil Nadu is one of the 29 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai, Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Puducherry and the South Indian states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh. The state shares a border with the nation of Sri Lanka. Tamil Nadu is the eleventh-largest state in India by area and the sixth-most populous, the state was ranked sixth among states in India according to the Human Development Index in 2011, with the second-largest state economy after Maharashtra. Tamil Nadu is the second largest state economy in India with ₹13,842 billion in gross domestic product after Maharashtra. Tamil Nadu was ranked as one of the top seven developed states in India based on a Multidimensional Development Index in a 2013 report published by the Reserve Bank of India and its official language is Tamil, which is one of the longest-surviving classical languages in the world. Tamil Nadu is home to natural resources. In addition, its people have developed and continue classical arts, classical music, historic buildings and religious sites include Hindu temples of Tamil architecture, hill stations, beach resorts, multi-religious pilgrimage sites, and eight UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Archaeological evidence points to this area being one of the longest continuous habitations in the Indian peninsula, the ASI archaeologists have proposed that the script used at that site is very rudimentary Tamil Brahmi. Adichanallur has been announced as a site for further excavation. About 60 per cent of the epigraphical inscriptions found by the ASI in India are from Tamil Nadu. A Neolithic stone celt with the Indus script on it was discovered at Sembian-Kandiyur near Mayiladuthurai in Tamil Nadu, according to epigraphist Iravatham Mahadevan, this was the first datable artefact bearing the Indus script to be found in Tamil Nadu. Mahadevan claimed that the find was evidence of the use of the Harappan language, the date of the celt was estimated at between 1500 BCE and 2000 BCE. The early history of the people and rulers of Tamil Nadu is a topic in Tamil literary sources known as Sangam literature, numismatic, archaeological and literary sources corroborate that the Sangam period lasted for about six centuries, from 300 BC to AD300. Three dynasties, namely the Chera, Chola and Pandya, ruled the area of present-day Tamil Nadu, the Chera ruled the whole of present-day Kerala and parts of western Tamil Nadu comprising Coimbatore, Dharmapuri, Karur, Salem and Erode districts from the capital of Vanchi Muthur. The Chola dynasty ruled the northern and central parts of Tamil Nadu from their capital, Uraiyur, All three dynasties had extensive trade relationships with Rome, Greece, Egypt, Ceylon, Phoenicia, Arabia, Mesopotamia and Persia. Trade flourished in commodities such as spices, ivory, pearls, beads, Chera traded extensively from Muziris on the west coast, Chola from Arikamedu and Puhar and Pandya through Korkai port. A Greco-Roman trade and travel document, the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea gives a description of the Tamil country, besides these three dynasties, the Sangam era Tamilakam was also divided into various provinces named nadu, meaning country
2.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
3.
Drainage basin
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A drainage basin or catchment area is any area of land where precipitation collects and drains off into a common outlet, such as into a river, bay, or other body of water. Drainage basins connect into other drainage basins at elevations in a hierarchical pattern, with smaller sub-drainage basins. Other terms used to describe drainage basins are catchment, catchment basin, drainage area, river basin and water basin. In closed drainage basins the water converges to a point inside the basin, known as a sink, which may be a permanent lake. The drainage basin acts as a funnel by collecting all the water within the covered by the basin. Each drainage basin is separated topographically from adjacent basins by a perimeter, drainage basins are similar but not identical to hydrologic units, which are drainage areas delineated so as to nest into a multi-level hierarchical drainage system. Hydrologic units are defined to allow multiple inlets, outlets, or sinks, in a strict sense, all drainage basins are hydrologic units but not all hydrologic units are drainage basins. Drainage basins of the oceans and seas of the world. Grey areas are endorheic basins that do not drain to the oceans, the following is a list of the major ocean basins, About 48. 7% of the worlds land drains to the Atlantic Ocean. The two major mediterranean seas of the world also flow to the Atlantic, The Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico basin includes most of the U. S. The Mediterranean Sea basin includes much of North Africa, east-central Africa, Southern, Central, and Eastern Europe, Turkey, and the areas of Israel, Lebanon. Just over 13% of the land in the world drains to the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Oceans drainage basin also comprises about 13% of Earths land. It drains the eastern coast of Africa, the coasts of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, the Indian subcontinent, Burma, antarctica comprises approximately eight percent of the Earths land. The five largest river basins, from largest to smallest, are the basins of the Amazon, the Río de la Plata, the Congo, the Nile, and the Mississippi. The three rivers that drain the most water, from most to least, are the Amazon, Ganga, endorheic drainage basins are inland basins that do not drain to an ocean. Around 18% of all land drains to endorheic lakes or seas or sinks, the largest of these consists of much of the interior of Asia, which drains into the Caspian Sea, the Aral Sea, and numerous smaller lakes. Some of these, such as the Great Basin, are not single drainage basins but collections of separate, in endorheic bodies of standing water where evaporation is the primary means of water loss, the water is typically more saline than the oceans. An extreme example of this is the Dead Sea, drainage basins have been historically important for determining territorial boundaries, particularly in regions where trade by water has been important
4.
India
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India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and it is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast, in the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Indias Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a border with Thailand. The Indian subcontinent was home to the urban Indus Valley Civilisation of the 3rd millennium BCE, in the following millennium, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism began to be composed. Social stratification, based on caste, emerged in the first millennium BCE, early political consolidations took place under the Maurya and Gupta empires, the later peninsular Middle Kingdoms influenced cultures as far as southeast Asia. In the medieval era, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived, much of the north fell to the Delhi sultanate, the south was united under the Vijayanagara Empire. The economy expanded in the 17th century in the Mughal empire, in the mid-18th century, the subcontinent came under British East India Company rule, and in the mid-19th under British crown rule. A nationalist movement emerged in the late 19th century, which later, under Mahatma Gandhi, was noted for nonviolent resistance, in 2015, the Indian economy was the worlds seventh largest by nominal GDP and third largest by purchasing power parity. Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the major economies and is considered a newly industrialised country. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, corruption, malnutrition, a nuclear weapons state and regional power, it has the third largest standing army in the world and ranks sixth in military expenditure among nations. India is a constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society and is home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. The name India is derived from Indus, which originates from the Old Persian word Hindu, the latter term stems from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, which translates as The people of the Indus, the geographical term Bharat, which is recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in its variations. Scholars believe it to be named after the Vedic tribe of Bharatas in the second millennium B. C. E and it is also traditionally associated with the rule of the legendary emperor Bharata. Gaṇarājya is the Sanskrit/Hindi term for republic dating back to the ancient times, hindustan is a Persian name for India dating back to the 3rd century B. C. E. It was introduced into India by the Mughals and widely used since then and its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety
5.
Sri Lanka
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Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an island country in South Asia near south-east India. Sri Lanka has maritime borders with India to the northwest and the Maldives to the southwest, Sri Lankas documented history spans 3,000 years, with evidence of pre-historic human settlements dating back to at least 125,000 years. Its geographic location and deep harbours made it of strategic importance from the time of the ancient Silk Road through to World War II. Sri Lanka was known from the beginning of British colonial rule until 1972 as Ceylon, Sri Lankas recent history has been marred by a thirty-year civil war which decisively ended when the Sri Lankan military defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in 2009. A diverse and multicultural country, Sri Lanka is home to many religions, ethnic groups, in addition to the majority Sinhalese, it is home to large groups of Sri Lankan and Indian Tamils, Moors, Burghers, Malays, Kaffirs and the aboriginal Vedda. Sri Lanka has a rich Buddhist heritage, and the first known Buddhist writings of Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka is a republic and a unitary state governed by a semi-presidential system. The legislative capital, Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, is a suburb of the capital and largest city. Along with the Maldives, Sri Lanka is one of the two countries in South Asia that are rated among high human development on the Human Development Index. In antiquity, Sri Lanka was known to travellers by a variety of names, according to the Mahavamsa, the legendary Prince Vijaya named the land Tambapanni, because his followers hands were reddened by the red soil of the area. In Hindu mythology, such as the Mahabharata, the island was referred to as Lankā, in Tamil, the island is referred to as Eelam. Ancient Greek geographers called it Taprobanā or Taprobanē from the word Tambapanni, as a British crown colony, the island was known as Ceylon, it achieved independence as the Dominion of Ceylon in 1948. The country is known in Sinhalese as Śrī Laṃkā and in Tamil as Ilaṅkai, in 1972, its formal name was changed to Free, Sovereign and Independent Republic of Sri Lanka. Later in 1978 it was changed to the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, as the name Ceylon still appears in the names of a number of organisations, the Sri Lankan government announced in 2011 a plan to rename all those over which it has authority. The pre-history of Sri Lanka goes back 125,000 years, the era spans the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and early Iron Ages. Among the Paleolithic human settlements discovered in Sri Lanka, Pahiyangala and it is said that Kubera was overthrown by his demon stepbrother Ravana, the powerful emperor who built a mythical flying machine named Dandu Monara. The modern city of Wariyapola is described as Ravanas airport, early inhabitants of Sri Lanka were probably ancestors of the Vedda people, an indigenous people numbering approximately 2,500 living in modern-day Sri Lanka. According to the Mahāvamsa, a written in Pāḷi, the original inhabitants of Sri Lanka are the Yakshas and Nagas. Ancient cemeteries that were used before 600BC and other signs of advanced civilization has also discovered in Sri Lanka
6.
Bay
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A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, lake, or another bay. A large bay may be called a gulf, sea, sound, a cove is a type of smaller bay with a circular inlet and narrow entrance. A fjord is a particularly steep bay shaped by glacial activity, bays can be the estuary of a river, such as the Chesapeake Bay, an estuary of the Susquehanna River, which is the largest bay in North America. Bays may also be nested within each other, for example, some large bays, such as the Bay of Bengal and the Hudson Bay, have varied marine geology. The land surrounding a bay often reduces the strength of winds, bays were significant in the history of human settlement because they provided a safe place for fishing. Later they were important in the development of sea trade as the safe anchorage they provide encouraged their selection as ports, there are various ways from which bays can be created. The largest bays have developed as a result of plate tectonics, as the super-continent Pangaea broke up along curved and indented fault lines, the continents moved apart and the worlds largest bays formed. These include the Gulf of Guinea, Gulf of Mexico and the Bay of Bengal, another way bays form is via glacial and river erosion. A bay formed by a glacier is a fjord, rias are created by rivers and are characterised by more gradual slopes. Currents can make waves more constant, and soft rocks speed erosion, hard rock eroded less quickly, leaving headlands. The Gulf of California is an example of a bay created by plate tectonics as Baja California peninsula moves away from the Mexican mainland, Bay platform Great capes Headlands and bays
7.
Laccadive Sea
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The Laccadive Sea or Lakshadweep Sea is a body of water bordering India, the Maldives, and Sri Lanka. It is located to the west of Kerala and this warm sea has a stable water temperature through the year and is rich in marine life, with the Gulf of Mannar alone hosting about 3,600 species. Trivandrum, Kochi, Colombo, Quilon and Malé are the cities on the shore of the Laccadive Sea. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Laccadive Sea as follows, a line running from Dondra Head in Ceylon to the most Southerly point of Addu Atoll. The West coasts of Ceylon and India, water temperature is rather constant through the year, averaging 26–28 °С in summer and 25 °С in winter. Salinity is 34‰ in the center and northern part and up to 35. 5‰ in the south, the coasts are sandy but the deeper parts are covered in silt. There are numerous coral reefs in the sea, such as the Lakshadweep islands which are made up of atolls, the Gulf of Mannar is known for its pearl banks of Pinctada radiata and Pinctada fucata for at least two thousand years. Pliny the Elder praised the pearl fishery of the gulf as most productive in the world, although extraction of natural pearls is considered too expensive in most parts of the world, it is still conducted in the gulf. Also collected in numbers are Shankha mollusks whose shells are used as a ritual. Other mollusks of the sea are either too scarce or not popular in the Indian society, another traditional occupation in the Laccadive Sea is fishing. The annual fish catch is 2,000 to 5,000 tonnes from the Lakshadweep islands, perches, halfbeaks, Carangidae, needlefish and rays are also caught near the reefs. Shrimp, Achelata and small fish, such as Sprattus, Pomacentridae and Apogonidae are widely used as a bait by the Laccadive islanders. With about 3,600 species of flora and fauna, the Gulf of Mannar is regarded as one of the richest marine biological resources in the world. Of these 3,600 species,44 are protected,117 are corals,79 crustaceans,108 sponges,260 mollusks,441 fin fishes,147 seaweeds and 17 mangroves. In 1986, a group of 21 islands and nearby waters with the area of 560 km² were declared Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park. The park and its zone were designated as a Biosphere Reserve in 1989. The Gulf of Mannar Biosphere Reserve covers an area of 10,500 km² of ocean, islands and the adjoining coastline, and is the largest such reserve in India. Most of its area is restricted for outsiders and the access of boats is subject to strict rules, from about 150,000 people living in the buffer zone and more than 70% of them depend on the coastal marine resources
8.
Indian Ocean
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The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the worlds oceanic divisions, covering 70,560,000 km2. It is bounded by Asia on the north, on the west by Africa, on the east by Australia, the Indian Ocean is known as Ratnākara, the mine of gems in ancient Sanskrit literature, and as Hind Mahāsāgar, in Hindi. The northernmost extent of the Indian Ocean is approximately 30° north in the Persian Gulf, the oceans continental shelves are narrow, averaging 200 kilometres in width. An exception is found off Australias western coast, where the width exceeds 1,000 kilometres. The average depth of the ocean is 3,890 m and its deepest point is Diamantina Deep in Diamantina Trench, at 8,047 m deep, Sunda Trench has a depth of 7, 258–7,725 m. North of 50° south latitude, 86% of the basin is covered by pelagic sediments. The remaining 14% is layered with terrigenous sediments, glacial outwash dominates the extreme southern latitudes. The major choke points include Bab el Mandeb, Strait of Hormuz, the Lombok Strait, the Strait of Malacca, the Indian Ocean is artificially connected to the Mediterranean Sea through the Suez Canal, which is accessible via the Red Sea. All of the Indian Ocean is in the Eastern Hemisphere and the centre of the Eastern Hemisphere is in this ocean, marginal seas, gulfs, bays and straits of the Indian Ocean include, The climate north of the equator is affected by a monsoon climate. Strong north-east winds blow from October until April, from May until October south, in the Arabian Sea the violent Monsoon brings rain to the Indian subcontinent. In the southern hemisphere, the winds are milder. When the monsoon winds change, cyclones sometimes strike the shores of the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean is the warmest ocean in the world. Long-term ocean temperature records show a rapid, continuous warming in the Indian Ocean, Indian Ocean warming is the largest among the tropical oceans, and about 3 times faster than the warming observed in the Pacific. Research indicates that human induced greenhouse warming, and changes in the frequency, among the few large rivers flowing into the Indian Ocean are the Zambezi, Shatt al-Arab, Indus, Godavari, Krishna, Narmada, Ganges, Brahmaputra, Jubba and Irrawaddy River. The oceans currents are controlled by the monsoon. Two large gyres, one in the northern hemisphere flowing clockwise and one south of the equator moving anticlockwise, during the winter monsoon, however, currents in the north are reversed. Deep water circulation is controlled primarily by inflows from the Atlantic Ocean, the Red Sea, north of 20° south latitude the minimum surface temperature is 22 °C, exceeding 28 °C to the east. Southward of 40° south latitude, temperatures drop quickly, surface water salinity ranges from 32 to 37 parts per 1000, the highest occurring in the Arabian Sea and in a belt between southern Africa and south-western Australia
9.
Coromandel Coast
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The Coromandel Coast is the southeastern coast region of the Indian Subcontinent, between the Eastern Ghats and the Bay of Bengal of the Indian Ocean. The coastline runs between False Divi Point in the north to Kanyakumari in the south and its definition can also include the northwestern coast of the island of Sri Lanka. The land of the Chola dynasty was called Cholamandalam in Tamil, literally translated as The realm of the Cholas, the alluvial plains created by these rivers are fertile and favour agriculture. The coastline forms a part of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, the region averages 800 mm/year, most of which falls between October and December. As a result, the coast is hit by inclement weather almost every year between October and January, the high variability of rainfall patterns is also responsible for water scarcity and famine in most areas not served by the great rivers. The Coromandel Coast is home to the East Deccan dry evergreen forests ecoregion, by late 1530 the Coromandel Coast was home to three Portuguese settlements at Nagapattinam, São Tomé de Meliapore, and Pulicat. Later, in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Coromandel Coast was the scene of rivalries among European powers for control of the India trade, the Coromandel Coast supplied Indian Muslim eunuchs to the Thai palace and court of Siam. The Thai at times asked eunuchs from China to visit the court in Thailand, eventually the British won out, although France retained the tiny enclaves of Pondichéry and Karaikal until 1954. Chinese lacquer goods, including boxes, screens, and chests, became known as Coromandel goods in the eighteenth century, because many Chinese exports were consolidated at the Coromandel ports. Some of the books on the economic history of the Coromandel Coast are 1. )S. Arasaratnam, Merchants, companies, and commerce on the Coromandel Coast, 1650-1740, Oxford University Press,1986. The earthquake and subsequent tsunami killed over 220,000 people around the rim of the Indian Ocean. The tsunami devastated the Coromandel Coast, killing many and sweeping away many coastal communities, four ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Coromandel after the Indian coast. The Coromandel Peninsula in New Zealand was named one of these ships. After the ship reached the shore, some of its sailors deserted, intending to remain behind in South Australia, a red nail varnish made by Chanel is named coromandel due to its suggestions of exoticism. One of the earliest superfast trains of Indian Railways that runs between Howrah and Chennai is named Coromandel Express, in Slovene the idiom Indija Koromandija means a land of plenty, a promised land, a utopia where Houses are bleached with cheese and covered with cake. There is a poem by the Indian poet and freedom fighter Sarojini Naidu titled Coromandel Fishers. Also, the little-known early 20th-century poet Walter J. Turner wrote a poem entitled Coromandel, the Courtship Of The Yonghy-bonghy-bo by Edward Lear is set on the Coast of Coromandel. Coromandel Wood is referred to by Dame Edith Sitwell in her poem Black Mrs Behemoth, part of Façade and her brother, Sir Osbert Sitwell composed a poem entitled On the coast of Coromandel
10.
Adam's Bridge
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Geological evidence suggests that this bridge is a former land connection between India and Sri Lanka. The bridge is 50 km long and separates the Gulf of Mannar from the Palk Strait, some of the sandbanks are dry and the sea in the area is very shallow, being only 1 to 10 metres deep in places, which hinders navigation. The bridge was first mentioned in the ancient Indian Sanskrit epic Ramayana of Valmiki, the Ramayana attributes the building of this bridge to Rama in verse 2-22-76, naming it as Setubandhanam, a name that persists until today. The sea separating India and Sri Lanka is called Sethusamudram meaning Sea of the Bridge, maps prepared by a Dutch cartographer in 1747, available at the Thanjavur Saraswathi Mahal Library show this area as Ramancoil, a colloquial form of the Tamil Raman Kovil. Another map of Mughal India prepared by J. Rennel in 1788 retrieved from the library called this area as the area of the Rama Temple. Many other maps in Schwartzbergs historical atlas and other such as travel texts by Marco Polo call this area by various names such as Sethubandha and Sethubandha Rameswaram. The western world first encountered it in works in the 9th century by Ibn Khordadbeh in his Book of Roads and Kingdoms. The earliest map that calls this area by the name Adams bridge was prepared by a British cartographer in 1804, Adams Bridge starts as a chain of shoals from the Dhanushkodi tip of Indias Pamban Island and ends at Sri Lankas Mannar Island. Pamban Island is semi-connected to the Indian mainland by 2 km long Pamban Bridge, Mannar Island is connected to mainland Sri Lanka by a causeway. The border between India and Sri Lanka is said to pass one of the shoals constituting one of the shortest land borders in the world. Adams bridge and neighbouring areas like Rameswaram, Dhanushkodi, Devipattinam, Pamban Island with its small port of Rameswaram is about 2 km from mainland India. The Pamban Bridge crossing the Pamban channel links Pamban Island with mainland India and it refers to both, a road bridge and a cantilever railway bridge. Small boats would go below the 2065 m long road bridge, the problem in navigation exists because big ships cannot travel in the shallow waters of the Pamban channel. Dredging in this channel would cost more than dredging a channel in the Rama Setu area, hence, in 2005, the Government of India approved a multi-million dollar Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project that aims to create a ship channel across the Palk Bay cutting across Rama Setu. A ferry service linked Dhanushkodi in India with Talaimannar in Sri Lanka, the service was part of the Indo-Ceylon Railway service during the British Rule. One could buy a ticket from Chennai to Colombo, whereby people travelled by rail from Chennai to Pamban island, go by ferry to Talaimannar. In 1964, a completely destroyed Dhanushkodi, as a train was about to enter the station. The tracks and the pier were damaged along the shores of Palk Bay
