Cape Arnhem in the context of "Gove land rights case"

Arnhem Land is a historical region of the Northern Territory of Australia. It is located in the north-eastern corner of the territory and is around 500 km (310 mi) from the territorial capital, Darwin. In 1623, Dutch East India Company captain Willem Joosten van Colster (or Coolsteerdt) sailed into the Gulf of Carpentaria and Cape Arnhem is named after his ship, the Arnhem, which itself was named after the city of Arnhem in the Netherlands.

The area covers about 97,000 km (37,000 sq mi) and has an estimated population of 16,000, of whom 12,000 are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Two regions are often distinguished as East Arnhem (Land) and West Arnhem (Land). The region's service hub is Nhulunbuy, 600 km (370 mi) east of Darwin, set up in the early 1970s as a mining town for bauxite. Other major population centres are Yirrkala (just outside Nhulunbuy), Gunbalanya (formerly Oenpelli), Ramingining, and Maningrida.

The Gulf of Carpentaria is a sea off the northern coast of Australia. It is enclosed on three sides by northern Australia and bounded on the north by the eastern Arafura Sea, which separates Australia and New Guinea. The northern boundary is generally defined as a line from Slade Point, Queensland (the northwestern corner of Cape York Peninsula) in the northeast, to Cape Arnhem on the Gove Peninsula, Northern Territory (the easternmost point of Arnhem Land), in the west.

At its mouth, the Gulf is 590 km (370 mi) wide, and further south, 675 km (420 mi). The north–south length exceeds 700 km (430 mi). It covers a water area of about 300,000 km (120,000 sq mi). The general depth is between 55 and 66 metres (30 and 36 fathoms) with a maximum depth of 69 metres (38 fathoms). The tidal range in the Gulf of Carpentaria is between two and three metres (6.5 and 10 ft). The Gulf and adjacent Sahul Shelf were dry land at the peak of the last ice age 18,000 years ago when global sea level was around 120 m (390 ft) below its present position. At that time a large, shallow lake occupied the centre of what is now the Gulf. The Gulf hosts a submerged coral reef province that was only recognised in 2004.