Elevation 89 m | ||
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Location 30 km (19 mi) south west of Port Lincoln | ||
Cape Carnot (French: Cap Carnot) is a headland located on the west side of the southern tip of Eyre Peninsula in South Australia about 30 kilometres (19 mi) south west of the city of Port Lincoln. The cape is described by one source as being the “S(outh) W(est) extremity of a broad promontory of which Cape Wiles, 3 nautical miles (5.6 km; 3.5 mi) to the E(ast), is the S(outh) E(ast) extremity”. It is one of a number of coastal features first discovered but not subsequently named by Matthew Flinders in February 1802 and which remained unnamed. In 1913, the Government of South Australia gave the unnamed feature the name proposed by the Baudin expedition when it visited in April 1802. The name Cape Carnot honours Lazare Carnot who is notable as a “French mathematician, general and statesman, who played a prominent part in the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era”. The cape is considered by the Australian Hydrographic Service to be the eastern end of the Great Australian Bight. Since 2012, the waters adjoining its shoreline are within a habitat protection zone in the Thorny Passage Marine Park.