Botany Bay, Sydney

Botany Bay, Sydney

Botany Bay (GPS: -33.98249, 151.18552) is a bay located to the south of Sydney, located a few kilometers from the Sydney Central Business District. The Sydney International Airport is on the northern bank of Botany Bay, with two of its runways jutting right into the it.

Botany Bay was where Captain James Cook landed on 6 May, 1770, sparking Britain's interest in establishing settlement and eventually colonising the continent of Australia. He arrived there in the company of Sir Joseph Banks (then Mr Joseph Banks), the imminent botanist and naturalist. As Banks discovered a huge variety of flora there, the area was given the name Botany Bay.

Later when Captain Arthur Phillip was sent to establish the first British penal settlement in Australia, he was instructed to set it up at Botany Bay. However, Phillip found the area has no proper anchorage or source of fresh water, and he ended up founding the settlement further north, in what became present-day Sydney.

Botany Bay is on the Map of Sydney, Australia

Back to Discover Sydney

 Latest updates on Penang Travel Tips

About this website

Dear visitor, thank you so much for reading this page. My name is Timothy Tye and my hobby is to find out about places, write about them and share the information with you on this website. I have been writing this site since 5 January 2003. Originally (from 2003 until 2009, the site was called AsiaExplorers. I changed the name to Penang Travel Tips in 2009, even though I describe more than just Penang but everywhere I go (I often need to tell people that "Penang Travel Tips" is not just information about Penang, but information written in Penang), especially places in Malaysia and Singapore, and in all the years since 2003, I have described over 20,000 places.

While I try my best to provide you information as accurate as I can get it to be, I do apologize for any errors and for outdated information which I am unaware. Nevertheless, I hope that what I have described here will be useful to you.