The Southern Sea
The Gulf of Mexico (Spanish: Golfo de México) is an oceanic basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, mostly surrounded by the North American continent. 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, Yucatán, and Quintana Roo; and on the southeast by Cuba.
The Gulf of Mexico basin is roughly oval and is about 810 nautical miles (1,500 kilometres; 930 miles) wide. Its floor consists of sedimentary rocks and recent sediments. It is connected to part of the Atlantic Ocean through the Straits of Florida between the U.S. and Cuba, and with the Caribbean Sea via the Yucatán Channel between Mexico and Cuba. Because of its narrow connection to the Atlantic Ocean, the gulf has very small tidal ranges.
Moisture from the Gulf of Mexico also contributes to weather across the United States, including severe weather in Tornado Alley.
The size of the gulf basin is about 1.6 million square kilometres (620,000 square miles). Almost half of the basin consists of shallow continental shelf waters. The volume of water in the basin is roughly 2.4 million cubic kilometres (580 thousand cubic miles). The gulf is one of the most important offshore petroleum production regions in the world, making up 14% of the total production for the United States.
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