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Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)
The warm ocean basin that shapes America’s southern coast
The Gulf of Mexico is a nearly enclosed ocean basin of about 600,000 square miles, bordered by five U.S. states, six Mexican states and the western tip of Cuba. Its warm water shapes the climate, economy and coastline of the American South. The Mississippi and dozens of other rivers pour into it, building the marshes and barrier islands of the Gulf Coast, while its deepest point, the Sigsbee Deep, lies more than 12,000 feet below the surface.
The Gulf is one of the most economically important bodies of water in the country. It supplies about 14 percent of U.S. crude oil production, carries the traffic of several of the nation's busiest ports and supports major shrimp and oyster fisheries. That wealth comes with risk. Summer surface water near 82°F fuels powerful hurricanes such as Katrina, farm runoff carried by the Mississippi creates a seasonal oxygen-starved dead zone off Louisiana and Texas, and the 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout became the largest marine oil spill in U.S. history.
Mapmakers have called it the Gulf of Mexico since about 1550. In January 2025, an executive order renamed it the Gulf of America for U.S. federal use, and federal agencies and some U.S. map services adopted the new name. Mexico objected, and Mexico and the International Hydrographic Organization continue to use Gulf of Mexico, so the same water now carries two names depending on who draws the map.