GEOGRAPHICAL HIGHLIGHTS
The Indian subcontinent is a large landmass jutting southward from Asia. India comprises more than three-fourths of the area, while Bangladesh occupies much of the Ganges Delta in the east. Nepal and Bhutan are small kingdoms in the Himalayas; Sri Lanka and the Maldives are island nations in the Indian Ocean.
THE INDIAN OCEAN
The third-largest of the world’s five oceans, the Indian Ocean occupies one-fifth of the planet’s sea surface. Including its adjacent seas, such as the Red Sea, the Bay of Bengal, and the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean covers around 28,400,000 square miles (nearly 73,560,000 sq. km) and spans about 6,200 miles (nearly 10,000 km) at its widest point. The ocean is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west, and Australasia to the east. The southern boundary of the ocean is artificially set at the line of 60° south latitude, which since 2000 has been recognized as the northern limit of the Southern Ocean by the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO, an intergovernmental organization that includes within its purview the standardization of marine names).
Compared with the larger Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean contains relatively few islands. The largest islands are near the rim and include Madagascar in the southwest, Sri Lanka in the north, and the islands of Indonesia in the northeast; the islands nearer the center of the ocean, including the Seychelles, the Chagos Islands, and the Maldives, are small. The ocean is physically complex, with only narrow continental shelves adjoining the surrounding landmasses. It has an average depth of 12,760 feet (3,889 m), reaching 24,442 feet (7,450 m) in the Java Trench in the northwest. A series of ridges cross the ocean floor, including the Carlsberg Ridge, the Southwest and Southeast Indian ridges, and the Ninety East Ridge. While most ridges in the ocean are active earthquake zones, the Ninety East Ridge (the straightest mountain chain in the world, running north-south along the 90° line of latitude toward the Bay of Bengal) is not seismically active. Elsewhere, plateaus, including the Mozambique, Madagascar, and Chagos–Laccadive plateaus, rise above the ocean floor. While the Indian Ocean’s adjacent seas, such as the Persian Gulf and the Bay of Bengal, have reserves of oil and natural gas, extensive mineral resources have not been found in the main body of the Indian Ocean. However, India produces commercial quantities of oil from the sea off Mumbai (Bombay), and natural gas is extracted from beneath the ocean floor off northwest Australia.
THE BAY OF BENGAL
The Bay of Bengal forms a large triangle between India in the west and Myanmar (Burma) and Malaysia in the east. Covering nearly 840,000 square miles (around 2,175,000 sq. km), the bay forms the largest relatively shallow area of the Indian Ocean at an average depth of 8,500 feet (2,600 m); it is around 1,000 miles (1,600 km) across at its widest point. Large waterways, including the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers, flow into the bay in the north, while the Godavari and Krishna are the largest rivers entering the bay from the west. The main small island chains in the Bay of Bengal are the Andaman and Nicobar islands in the southeast. The bay is rich in fish resources, but apart from commercial tuna fishing, the industry is small-scale. Important reserves of natural gas have been found in the Bay of Bengal; these reserves could become a major power source for India and could help to develop the economy of Bangladesh.
