The northwestern end of the bay is defined by the Ponta da Macaneta, a spit with beaches facing westwards towards the Mozambique Channel, and mangroves behind.

[3] In spite of a bar at the entrance and a number of shallows within, Maputo Bay forms a valuable harbour, accessible to large vessels at all seasons of the year.

[8][9] In 1823, Captain (afterwards Vice-Admiral) W. F. W. Owen, of the Royal Navy, finding that the Portuguese exercised no jurisdiction south of the settlement of Lourenço Marques, concluded treaties of cession with native chiefs, hoisted the British flag, and appropriated the country from the English river southwards; but when he visited the bay again in 1824 he found that the Portuguese, disregarding the British treaties, had concluded others with the natives, and had endeavoured (unsuccessfully) to take military possession of the country.

Captain Owen re-hoisted the British flag, but the sovereignty of either power was left undecided till the claims of the Transvaal Republic rendered a solution of the question urgent.

In 1835 Boers, under a leader named Orich, had attempted to form a settlement on the bay and in 1868 the Transvaal president, Marthinus Pretorius, claimed the country on each side of the Maputo down to the sea.

[3] In 1861, Royal Navy Captain Bickford declared Inhaca and Elephant islands to be British territory; an act protested by the authorities in Lisbon.

In 1872, the dispute between the United Kingdom and Portugal was submitted to the arbitration of Adolphe Thiers, the French president; and on 19 April 1875 his successor, Marshal MacMahon, ruled in favor of the Portuguese.

Portuguese authority over the Mozambican interior was not established until some time after the MacMahon decision; nominally, the country south of the Manhissa river was ceded to them by the Matshangana chief Umzila in 1861.