St Helena Bay
human settlement in South Africa
Saint Helena Bay (Afrikaans: St. Helenabaai) is a settlement in West Coast District Municipality in the Western Cape province of South Africa.
Nicknamed by locals as Agterbaai, the town is located on the shore of the bay, from which it derives its name and is approximately 150 km north of Cape Town, South Africa. It surrounds the towns of Vredenburg and Paternoster, and is located across the bay from Laaiplek.
History
Historically, Saint Helena Bay is the location where Vasco da Gama, first set foot in South Africa. The date of this event was recorded as 7 November, 1497. The bay was named Bahia de Santa Helena (Portuguese for its current name) after Saint Helena a devout, influential Christian and mother of Constantine I. During this time the Portuguese explorers and the local Khoikhoi became involved in a skirmish wounding Da Gama in the thigh.
The Dutch East India Company established an outpost at St Helena Bay in the 17th century, the Free Burghers fished there and ships from the settlement at the Cape frequently traveled to the area in search of resources to sustain the settlement. In 1673 during the 2nd Khoikhoi War the Cochoquas under the leadership of Gonnema attacked the outpost resulting in an escalation during the war.
Agriculture
Saint Helena Bay is a major fishing town.
“St Helena Bay” enters the record as human settlement in South Africa. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Helena, human and settlement can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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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 Jun 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2656096. Authority coordinates are -32.758, 18.028. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1497 and 1673.
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This entry incorporates text from “St Helena Bay” 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.