Joseph Bonaparte Gulf

Joseph Bonaparte Gulf lies off the northern Australian coast between Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Its present European name comes from Nicolas Baudin's expedition in 1803, honoring Napoleon's brother Joseph. The naming belongs to the expedition's survey of Australia's coasts; it does not date the beginning of human knowledge or use of the gulf.

A published chronology of the voyage records Baudin reaching the gulf on 23 June 1803. His ships had sailed north from Timor earlier that month, but illness, exhaustion and diminishing water supplies prevented the intended continuation toward Torres Strait. Baudin decided to return to Île de France, now Mauritius, where he died in September. The gulf thus marked a turning point at the end of the voyage. This episode gives its charted name a precise historical context, shaped by the limits of the crews and their provisions as well as the ambitions of maritime exploration.