Overview
The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's five ocean basins (after the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean, but larger than the Southern Ocean and Arctic Ocean). Four critically important access waterways are the Suez Canal (Egypt), Bab el Mandeb (Djibouti-Yemen), Strait of Hormuz (Iran-Oman), and Strait of Malacca (Indonesia-Malaysia). The International Hydrographic Organization decided in 2000 to delimit a fifth world ocean basin, the Southern Ocean, which removed the portion of the Indian Ocean south of 60 degrees south latitude.
Geography
- Location
- body of water between Africa, the Southern Ocean, Asia, and Australia
- Total Area
- 70.56 million sq km
- Climate
- northeast monsoon (December to April), southwest monsoon (June to October); tropical cyclones occur during May/June and October/November in the northern Indian Ocean and January/February in the southern Indian Ocean
- Natural Resources
- oil and gas fields, fish, shrimp, sand and gravel aggregates, placer deposits, polymetallic nodules
- Coastline
- 66,526 km