The name Cameroon is derived from Rio dos Camarões (“River of Prawns”), the name given to the Wouri River estuary by Portuguese explorers in the 15th and 16th centuries. Camarões was also used to designate the river’s neighboring mountains. Until the late 19th century, English usage confined the term the Cameroons to the mountains, while the estuary was called the Cameroons River or, locally, the Bay. In 1884 the Germans extended the word Kamerun to their entire protectorate, which largely corresponded to the present state.