Bay
Bay of Bengal
Natural Earth’s outline of the Bay of Bengal measures about 2,037,000 km² (786,000 mi²), the 5th largest of the 42 seas on sizeversus, and 1.04× the size of Mexico.
- Bay of Bengal
- Mexico
The numbers
- 2,037,000km²Area, measured786,000 mi² · Natural Earth outline
- 2,172,000km²Area, publishedWikidata · 6.2% above our measure, flagged
- 4,694mGreatest depthWikidata
The area is measured from the outline drawn above, on the WGS84 ellipsoid; the published figure is shown beside it, and a water body is kept only if the two are within 10%. This one is between 5% and 10% apart, so it is flagged and no comparison is built for it automatically.
What the numbers say about the Bay of Bengal
- The Arabian Sea, the largest of the 42 seas ranked on sizeversus, is 2.03× the size of the Bay of Bengal; the Bay of Bengal ranks 5th.
- The Bay of Bengal sits between the Bering Sea (2,232,000 km²) and the Sea of Okhotsk (1,459,000 km²) in the ranking.
- Counted as a country, the Bay of Bengal would be larger than 200 of the 212 countries listed on sizeversus and would rank 13th by area, between Greenland (2,154,000 km²) and Mexico (1,958,000 km²).
- It is larger than all 51 US states and districts.
- It is larger than all 31 provinces and regions of China.
- The closest US state is Alaska (1,505,000 km²): the Bay of Bengal is 1.35× the size of Alaska.
- Wikidata records a greatest depth of 4,694 m.
- The Bay of Bengal lies at 14°N, close to the equator, where a standard web map (Web Mercator) is nearly true to size: it inflates area by only about 1.1×.
- Laid out flat, the Bay of Bengal stretches about 2,000 km north to south and 1,710 km east to west.
- Our measured 2,037,000 km² is 6.2% below Wikidata’s published figure of 2,172,000 km². This difference is flagged for review: a lake’s outline may include islands or bays that the published figure leaves out, or the water level may differ. The outline is kept because it is within 10%, and this page is not matched automatically to any other.
About the same size as
Countries
Chinese provinces
On the shore
Natural Earth’s outlines of India, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Sri Lanka lie within 25 km of the outline of the Bay of Bengal. That is what its geometry says, and it is not a statement about who owns the water or where any border runs in it.
Where the Bay of Bengal ranks
The Bay of Bengal is the 5th largest of the 42 seas on sizeversus, ranked by measured area.
Share this outline
Sources and method
- Outline
- Natural Earth, 1:10m Marine Areas (geography_marine_polys), public domain (Marine Areas (geography_marine_polys)). Natural Earth draws marine areas for labels and cuts them at named sub-areas; the outline is kept because its area matches the published one.
- Boundary
- A lake or a sea has no legal boundary of its own. The outline is a cartographic one, and the page says so by showing the measured area beside the published one.
- Area basis
- Measured outline: computed on the WGS84 ellipsoid from the full-detail outline and shown rounded. Published figure: Wikidata (CC0), fetched 2026-11-11. An outline is kept within 10% of the published figure and matched to other places automatically within 5%.
- Depth, volume, height
- As recorded in Wikidata; a volume that cannot be right for the area and depth is left out.
- Shore
- Countries whose Natural Earth outline contains or comes close to the water's outline; computed, not a statement of ownership.
- Drawing
- Each outline is projected with an equal-area projection centred on its own centroid, so areas stay true and two can be laid over each other.
- Data built
- 2026-11-11