What is the largest bay in the world?
The Bay of Bengal is the largest bay in the world, covering about 2.2 million square kilometers in the northeastern Indian Ocean, bordered by India, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Sri Lanka.
The Bay of Bengal receives water from several of Asia's great rivers, including the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Irrawaddy. Together, the Ganges and Brahmaputra form the world's largest delta, the Sundarbans, home to mangrove forests and Bengal tigers. Major ports on the bay include Chennai, Kolkata and Chittagong.
The bay is known for powerful tropical cyclones, which bring strong winds and storm surges to low-lying coasts. The 1970 Bhola cyclone, one of the deadliest natural disasters in history, killed hundreds of thousands of people in what is now Bangladesh.
Other large bays
Hudson Bay in Canada is the second-largest bay by area, at about 1.2 million square kilometers. The Gulf of Mexico is sometimes compared, but it is called a gulf, which is generally a large body of water partly enclosed by land, similar to a bay.
Did You Know?
The difference between a bay and a gulf is not strictly defined. Gulfs are often larger and more enclosed, but the names are used inconsistently.