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What countries are in the Mediterranean?

 

Mediterranean 

Covering about 2.5 million km2, the Mediterranean is the tenth largest ocean in the world, located between southern Europe and northern Africa, and accounts for approximately 0.7% of the global oceans surface. 

The Mediterranean is an expansive sea located between Europe in the north, Africa to the south, and Asia in the east.

 The Atlantic is significantly cooler and richer in nutrients than the Mediterranean, and Mediterranean sea life has had to adjust to its different conditions over the five million years that have passed since the basin was reflooded.

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The Western extremity of the Mediterranean Sea is connected with the Atlantic Ocean by the narrow, shallow Channel of Gibraltar, about eight miles (13 km) wide at its narrowest; and the depth of the sill, or underwater ridge, that divides the Atlantic from the Alboran Sea is approximately 1,050 feet (320 metres).

 The shallow underwater ridge that lies beneath the Strait of Messina, separating the island of Sicily from Tunisias coastline, divides the Mediterranean into two major subregions, Western Mediterranean and Eastern Mediterranean.

The Mediterranean is bordered to the north by Europe, to the south by Africa, and to the east by Asia; and joins The Atlantic Ocean via the Strait of Gibraltar, only eight miles (13 km) wide and 1,050 feet (320 meters) deep. 

To the west, the Mediterranean is connected with the Atlantic Ocean via the Strait of Gibraltar, to the east by the Black Sea via the Dardanelles Straits, and to the south, since 1869, when the Suez Canal was opened, with the Red Sea.

 The Mediterranean covers a rough area of 2.5 million km2 (965,000 mi2), but is connected to the Atlantic Ocean only by 14 kilometres (9 mi) across (the Strait of Gibraltar). 

The Mediterranean was the Superhighway of Transportation during antiquity, which allowed for commerce and cultural exchange among emerging nations in the region: Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Semitic, Persian, Phoenician, Carthaginian, Greek, Roman, and Turkish cultures.

The Mediterranean is a semi-closed sea, with low inputs from water in pluvial forms (rainfall and rivers) and a high rate of evaporation; it would have dried up a long time ago, absent a steady supply of water from the Atlantic. 

The eastern Mediterranean is composed of the Ionian basin (northwestern part is northern Adriatic) and Levantine basin (northwestern part is the Aegean).

 Previously, the majority of trade between western Europe and the east passed through the western Mediterranean, but the development of the maritime routes into the Indian Ocean from the 1490s allowed the importation of Asian spices and other goods via Atlantic ports in Western Europe.