Shark Bay is a
World Heritage Site in the
Gascoyne region of
Western Australia. The heritagelisted area is located approximately north of
Perth, on the westernmost point of the
Australian continent, inscribed as follows:
The record of
Australian Aboriginal occupation of Shark Bay extends to years
BP. At that time most of the area was dry land, rising sea levels flooding Shark Bay between BP and BP. A considerable number of aboriginal midden sites have been found, especially on Peron Peninsula and Dirk Hartog Island which provide evidence of some of the foods gathered from the waters and nearby land areas. An expedition led by
Dirk Hartog happened upon the area in 1616, becoming the second group of
Europeans known to have visited Australia, after the crew of the
Duyfken, under
Willem Janszoon, visited
Cape York in 1606. Shark Bay was named by
William Dampier, on 7 August 1699.