Seas, gulfs, bays, straits and canals

Water bodies come in different shapes, and the shapes have names. The chapter's table sorts five of them.

A sea is a large, partly enclosed saltwater area connected to an ocean: the Arabian Sea, for example.

A gulf is a large inlet of the sea that cuts deeply into land, like the Persian Gulf. A bay is a smaller, broad inlet, like the Bay of Bengal, which is the world's largest bay.

A strait is a narrow channel joining two seas or oceans, like the Strait of Malacca. And a canal is a man-made channel connecting water bodies, like the Suez Canal.

Notice that only the last one is made by people. The other four are shapes the coastline happens to take.

These shapes do real work. They support trade and transport: the Persian Gulf has carried trade between India and Europe for thousands of years.

Bays do something special: they give safe shelter for ports and dockyards, protecting them from the strong winds of the open ocean. That is why so many great ports are in bays rather than on open coasts.

The Suez Canal, opened in 1869, connects the Red Sea with the Mediterranean, creating a waterway from the Indian Ocean to Europe and making the shortest sea route from India to Europe. Before it, ships had to sail all the way round Africa.