Mediterranean Sea, an intercontinental sea that stretches from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to Asia in the east and separates Europe from Africa. It is often referred to as the cradle of Western civilisation. This ancient "sea between the lands" is a deep, elongated and almost closed, irregular depression that lies between latitudes 30° and 46° N and longitudes 5°50′ W and 36° E. Its west-east extent - from the Strait of Gibraltar between Spain and Morocco to the shores of the Gulf of Iskenderun on the south-west coast of Turkey - is about 4,000 kilometres, and its average north-south extent between the southernmost coast of Croatia and Libya is about 800 kilometres. The Mediterranean Sea, including the Sea of Marmara, covers an area of about 970,000 square miles (2,510,000 square kilometres).
The western end of the Mediterranean is connected to the Atlantic Ocean by the narrow and shallow Strait of Gibraltar, which is about 13 kilometres wide at its narrowest point. The depth of the sill or submarine ridge that separates the Atlantic from the Alborán Sea is about 320 metres (1,050 feet). To the northeast, the Mediterranean is connected to the Black Sea by the Dardanelles (with a sill depth of 70 metres), the Sea of Marmara and the Bosporus Strait (with a sill depth of 90 metres). In the south-east, it is connected to the Red Sea by the Suez Canal.
