The Red Sea is an inlet of the Indian Ocean between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb sound and the Gulf of Aden. In the north are the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba or the Gulf of Eilat and the Gulf of Suez (leading to the Suez Canal).
The Red Sea is a Global 200 ecoregion (a list of ecoregions identified by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) as priorities for conservation).
Occupying a part of the Great Rift Valley, the Red Sea has a surface area of roughly 174,000 square miles (450,000 km²) and being roughly 1,200 miles (1,900 km) long.
Its widest point is over 190 miles (300 km) wide. It has a maximum depth of 8,200 feet (2,500 metres) in the central median trench and an average depth of 1,640 feet (500 metres), but there are also extensive shallow shelves, noted for their marine life and corals.
The sea is the habitat of over 1,000 invertebrate species and 200 soft and hard corals and is the world's most northern tropical sea.
The Red Sea is one of the most saline water bodies in the world, due to the effects of the water circulation pattern, resulting from evaporation and wind stress. Salinity ranges between 3.6 and 3.8 %.
