Gulf of Mexico

The numbers

• 1,562,000km²Area, measured603,000 mi² · Natural Earth outline
• 1,550,000km²Area, publishedWikidata · agrees within 2%
• 4,384mGreatest 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%.

What the numbers say about the Gulf of Mexico

• If it counted as one sea, the Gulf of Mexico would rank 6th of the 43 seas on sizeversus, behind the Bay of Bengal (2,037,000 km²) and ahead of the Sea of Okhotsk (1,459,000 km²).
• The largest piece, Main basin (Natural Earth’s Gulf of Mexico polygon) (1,403,000 km²), is 90% of the whole; the smallest, Bay of Campeche (159,000 km²), is 10%.
• Counted as a country, the Gulf of Mexico would be larger than 193 of the 212 countries listed on sizeversus and would rank 20th by area, between Mongolia (1,565,000 km²) and Peru (1,290,000 km²).
• It is larger than all 51 US states and districts.
• It is larger than 30 of the 31 provinces and regions of China (the biggest of them is Inner Mongolia, 1,144,000 km²) and smaller than 1.
• The closest US state is Alaska (1,505,000 km²): the Gulf of Mexico is 1.04× the size of Alaska.
• Wikidata records a greatest depth of 4,384 m.
• The Gulf of Mexico lies at 25°N, close to the equator, where a standard web map (Web Mercator) is nearly true to size: it inflates area by only about 1.2×.
• Laid out flat, the Gulf of Mexico stretches about 1,390 km north to south and 1,820 km east to west.
• Counted as one, the 2 pieces measure 1,562,000 km². The published figure for the whole, 1,550,000 km² (Wikidata, for the whole), is 0.8% below it.

The 2 pieces of the Gulf of Mexico

Natural Earth draws each piece as its own outline; their areas add up to 1,562,000 km². Largest first.

• Main basin (Natural Earth’s Gulf of Mexico polygon)1,403,000 km² · 90%
• Bay of Campeche159,000 km² · 10%

About the same size as

On the shore

• United States
• Mexico
• Cuba

Natural Earth’s outlines of the United States, Mexico and Cuba lie within 25 km of the outline of the Gulf of Mexico. That is what its geometry says, and it is not a statement about who owns the water or where any border runs in it.

Names

• Gulf of Mexicothe name in this page’s titlesource: Size Versus, from the common name of the sea or lake system
• Gulf of Americaalso calledsource: Wikidata alias

Governments and organisations use different names for this body of water, or for parts of it. Size Versus uses the name that Natural Earth’s file gives as the title, lists the other names it can source, and takes no position on which is right. The wording is the same in every language.

Compare the Gulf of Mexico

• Mongolia vs Gulf of Mexico
• Iran vs Gulf of Mexico
• Gulf of Mexico vs Alaska
• Mexico vs Gulf of Mexico