Torres Strait

Geographical location

The Torres Strait (also road from Torres, English: Torres Strait) is a 185 km wide but only up to 12 m deep strait between the north-eastern Australian Cape York Peninsula and the south coast of New Guinea, specifically the Western Province of the State of Papua New Guinea.

West of the Torres Strait lies the Gulf of Carpentaria, which reaches depths even only up to 53 meters.

The Torres Strait is littered with coral reefs, cliffs, sandbars and islands. In addition to the reefs of the eastern and western entrance to the strait is so obstructed by cliffs that only narrow passages remain. On the east side is the Great Barrier Reef. At the western entrances, from the Gulf of Carpentaria and the Arafura Sea, lies the Endeavour Strait. It is safer in 1803, discovered by Matthew Flinders channel north of Prince of Wales Island.

History

In 1606 the Straits by the Spaniard Luiz Vaez de Torres was discovered. His collected reports were for a long time by the Spanish colonizers kept secret until the British captured it in 1762 after the conquest of Manila. The Scottish geographer Alexander Dalrymple realized the importance of documents and published Torres ' discovery in his work on the South Pacific explorations.

Six months before the Dutchman Willem Jansz Torres crossed with his ship Duyfken in the waters west of the Torres Strait. But he believed that the areas were in Australia, where he had landed to New Guinea. As explored Next Carstenszoon January 1623 the waters west of the Torres Strait. His task was to confirm Jansz ' reports. The passage through the passage he did not succeed. The Dutch East India Company commissioned Abel Tasman in 1644 with a further expedition to clarify the question of whether New Guinea and Australia formed a contiguous land mass. Tasman did not make it as his countrymen to cross the strait. For over a century, the question remained unsettled. Only Dalrymple's publication made ​​it possible for James Cook to plan exactly during his first South Seas voyage to find a passage. He passed in 1770, the Torres Strait in the southern part and baptized the strait to his own ship Endeavour Street.

The passage of the Torres Strait was still the end of the 19th century as so difficult that insurance companies exclude passing ships of all insurance benefits.

Torres Strait Islander

The islands in the Torres Strait belong mostly to the Australian state of Queensland. They extend over an area of about 48,000 square kilometers. Only 17 of the approximately 270 islands are inhabited. The indigenous people, the Torres Strait Islanders, descended from the Melanesians, who colonized the islands about 5,000 years ago in Papua New Guinea from.