Gulf of Mexico

The Gulf of Mexico is an oceanic basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, mostly surrounded by the North American continent, with a basin of about 1.6 million square kilometres. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by the Mexican states of Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatan and Quintana Roo, and on the southeast by Cuba. It joins the Atlantic Ocean through the Straits of Florida and the Caribbean Sea through the Yucatan Channel, and these narrow connections keep its tidal ranges very small. The basin began as an opening that rifting flooded to create an enclosed marginal sea.