- The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world’s five oceanic divisions, covering 70,560,000 km2 (27,240,000 sq mi) or approx. 20% of the water on Earth’s surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by the Southern Ocean, or Antarctica, depending on the definition in use. Along its core, the Indian Ocean has large marginal, or regional seas, such as the Andaman Sea, the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal, and the Laccadive Sea.
- Earth (Wikipedia)
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only place known in the universe where life has originated and found habitability. Earth is the only planet known to sustain liquid surface water, with ocean water extending over 70.8% of the planet, making it an ocean world. Most of all other water is retained in Earth’s polar regions, with large sheets of ice covering ocean and land, dwarfing Earth’s groundwater, lakes, rivers and atmospheric water. The other 29.2% of the Earth’s surface is land, consisting of continents and islands, and is widely covered by vegetation. Below the planet’s surface lies the crust, consisting of several slowly moving tectonic plates, which interact to produce mountain ranges, volcanoes, and earthquakes. Inside the Earth’s crust is a liquid outer core that generates the magnetosphere, deflecting most of the destructive solar winds and cosmic radiation.
- Gulf of Aden (Wikipedia)
The Gulf of Aden (Arabic: خليج عدن; Somali: Gacanka Cadmeed) is a deepwater gulf of the Indian Ocean between Yemen to the north, the Arabian Sea to the east, Djibouti to the west, and the Guardafui Channel, Socotra and Somalia to the south. In the northwest, it connects with the Red Sea through the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, and it connects with the Arabian Sea to the east. To the west, it narrows into the Gulf of Tadjoura in Djibouti. The Aden Ridge lies along the middle of the Gulf and is causing it to widen about 15mm per year.
- Arabian Sea (Wikipedia)
The Arabian Sea (Arabic: بَحرُ ٱلْعَرَبْ, romanized: baḥr al-ʿarab) is a region of sea in the northern Indian Ocean, bounded on the west by the Arabian Peninsula, Gulf of Aden and Guardafui Channel, on the northwest by Gulf of Oman and Iran, on the north by Pakistan, on the east by India, and on the southeast by the Laccadive Sea and the Maldives, on the southwest by Somalia. Its total area is 3,862,000 km2 (1,491,000 sq mi) and its maximum depth is 4,652 meters (15,262 feet). The Gulf of Aden in the west connects the Arabian Sea to the Red Sea through the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, and the Gulf of Oman is in the northwest, connecting it to the Persian Gulf.
- Red Sea (Wikipedia)
The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez (leading to the Suez Canal). It is underlain by the Red Sea Rift, which is part of the Great Rift Valley.
- British Indian Ocean Territory (Wikipedia)
The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) is an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom situated in the Indian Ocean, halfway between Tanzania and Indonesia. The territory comprises the seven atolls of the Chagos Archipelago with over 1,000 individual islands, many very small, amounting to a total land area of 60 square kilometres (23 square miles). The largest and most southerly island is Diego Garcia, 27 square kilometres (10 square miles), the site of a Joint Military Facility of the United Kingdom and the United States. Official administration is remote from London, though the local capital is often regarded as being on Diego Garcia.