Bodega Bay is a shallow inlet on the northern California coast that has long served as both a natural harbor and a working coastal landscape. Coast Miwok communities lived along its shores before European arrival. The bay entered European use through Spanish exploration in the late 18th century, then became especially important in the Russian colonial era as Fort Ross's main port and supply point. After 1848 it continued as an active shipping harbor until railroad patterns reduced that role in the 1870s. In the 20th century it became known for resistance to development, its use in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, and its location astride the San Andreas Fault.