The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean lying between Africa and Asia, connected to the ocean through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden in the south, and to the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal in the north.
Roughly 438,000 square kilometres in surface area, the Red Sea stretches 2,250 kilometres in length and reaches 355 kilometres at its widest point. It sits atop the Red Sea Rift, part of the Great Rift Valley. Though its central Suakin Trough descends to 2,730 metres, the sea is notably shallow across much of its extent: approximately 40 per cent lies less than 100 metres deep and 25 per cent less than 50 metres. These extensive shallow shelves support exceptional marine biodiversity. More than 1,000 invertebrate species and 200 types of soft and hard coral inhabit its waters, making it the world’s northernmost tropical sea and earning it recognition as a Global 200 ecoregion. The combination of warm temperatures, high salinity and relative isolation has fostered a distinct assemblage of reef life central to global coral conservation.
