Marina
a harbor for leisure craft such as yachts and motor cruisers, usually purpose-built with servicing facilities
A marina (from Spanish [maˈɾina], Portuguese [mɐˈɾinɐ] and Italian [maˈriːna]: "related to the sea") is a dock or area of water with piers and moorings for securing and parking yachts and small boats. A marina differs from a port in that a marina is not designed to handle large passenger ships or freighters, and is often for leisure boating activities such as yachting, sailing and boat tours.
The word marina may also refer to an inland wharf on a river or canal that is used exclusively by ferries and tour boats such as canal narrowboats.
Emplacement
Marinas may be located along the banks of rivers connecting to lakes or seas and may be inland.
They are also located on coastal harbors (natural or man made) or coastal lagoons, either as stand alone facilities or within a port complex.
History
In the 19th century, the few existing pleasure craft shared the same facilities as trading and fishing vessels. The marina appeared in the 20th century with the popularization of yachting.
Facilities and services
A marina may have refuelling, washing and repair facilities, marine and boat chandlers, stores and restaurants.
A marina may include ground facilities such as parking lots for vehicles and boat trailers. Slipways (or boat ramps) transfer a trailered boat into the water.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Marina” is a harbor for leisure craft such as yachts and motor cruisers, usually purpose-built with servicing facilities. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Marina, harbor and leisure, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “a harbor for leisure craft such as yachts and motor cruisers, usually purpose-built with servicing facilities” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q721207.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Marina”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Marina primary sources, Marina archive and Marina research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Marina” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.