Sea · India, Bangladesh, Myanmar
Bay of Bengal
The Bay of Bengal is a huge, roughly triangular bay in the north-east of the Indian Ocean. India lies to its west, Bangladesh to its north and Myanmar to its east.
Picture credit: Adityamadhav83 (CC BY-SA 3.0) · IM3847 (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Shahidul Hasan Roman (CC BY-SA 3.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where is Bay of Bengal?
Part of: Indian Ocean.
Countries on its coasts: India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia.
The story behind it
Some of Asia's great rivers flow into the Bay of Bengal: the Ganges, the Brahmaputra, the Irrawaddy, the Godavari and the Krishna. They carry so much mud and sand that on the sea floor it has piled up into the Bengal Fan, the largest fan of its kind in the world, about 3 000 km long. On its shores lie the Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest on Earth, home of the Bengal tiger. Irrawaddy dolphins swim in the shallow water, and olive ridley sea turtles come to the beaches of Gahirmatha in India to lay their eggs. In the east lie the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Busy port cities such as Kolkata, Chennai and Visakhapatnam in India and Chittagong in Bangladesh stand on its shores. The weather here is shaped by the monsoon, and sometimes strong storms called cyclones sweep across the bay.
Find it on the globe
Bay of Bengal is there as a name written across its water — tap the water and its card opens. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.
Questions children ask
How big is the Bay of Bengal?
The Bay of Bengal covers about 2.17 million km², though some sources give a larger figure because they draw its border further south. It is about 2 090 km long and up to 1 610 km wide.
How deep is the Bay of Bengal?
On average it is about 2 600 m deep. At its deepest point it reaches 4 694 m.
Which rivers flow into the Bay of Bengal?
Among them are the Ganges, the Brahmaputra, the Irrawaddy, the Godavari and the Krishna. Together they bring huge amounts of sand and mud into the bay.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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