To this day they haue not diſouered at the Indies any Mediterranean Sea, as in Europe, Aſia, and Affrica, into the which there enters ſome arme of this great Sea, and makes diſtinct Seas, taking their names from the Prouinces they waſh: and almoſt all of the Mediterranean Seas continue and ioyne together, and with the Ocean it ſelfe, by the ſtraight of Gibraltar, which the Ancients called, the Pillers of Hercules, […]

[I]t [the German Sea or North Sea] enlarges more and more, and forms the Baltic, which is a mediterranean sea, extending, from south to north, near 300 leagues, if the Gulf of Bothnia, which is a continuation of it, be comprehended.

A strait is the narrow part of the sea which separates two continents or islands, or an island from the mainland, or forms the opening into a mediterranean sea; […] The islands of the land correspond to the inland seas, the peninsulas to the mediterranean seas and gulfs, the promontories of the land to the bays, and the straits joining the mediterranean seas to the oceans, to the isthmuses which connect the peninsulas to the mainland.

A similar situation is observable in regard to the other mediterranean seas. North Africa has been more intimately related to Europe than with the equatorial belt beyond the Sahara and Northern Australia is closer to Singapore than to Melbourne which lies on the other side of the broad Australian desert.

The Mediterranean seas are basins with sizes smaller than oceans, extended between the continents, separated from the adjacent ocean by means of one or several straits, with the bottom developed on a continental crust and on ocean crust, with local surface circulation, with modest interactions between sea and atmosphere. According to their size, there are large Mediterranean seas (Mediterranean Sea, American Mediterranean, Australasian Mediterranean Sea) and small Mediterranean seas (Baltic Sea, Red Sea).

Mediterranean sea

Meaning

Noun

Name