The Bay of Plenty is a bight in the northern coast of New Zealand's North Island. It stretches 260 km from the Coromandel Peninsula in the west to Cape Runaway in the east. The Bay of Plenty Region is situated around this body of water, also incorporating several large islands in the bay. The bay was named by James Cook after he noticed the abundant food supplies at several Māori villages there, in stark contrast to the earlier observations he had made in Poverty Bay.