The Mediterranean refers to the vast waters between Asia, Africa and Europe. The earliest Jews and ancient Greeks called it "sea" or "sea" for short. Because ancient people only knew that this sea was located between three continents, it was called "Mediterranean". English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and other languages are all spelled from the Latin Maremediterraneum, in which "Medi" means "between" and "terra" means "land", and the full name is "ocean in the middle of land". This name first appeared in ancient books in the 3rd century. In the 7th century, the Spanish writer Isir used the Mediterranean as a geographical name for the first time.
It is the largest land ocean in the world. It is about 4,000 kilometers long from east to west and 1800 kilometers wide from north to south, covering an area of more than 2.5 million square kilometers. In the western Mediterranean, there is a strait of Gibraltar with a width of 2 1km, which leads to the Atlantic Ocean. The east can enter the Indian Ocean through the Suez Canal, and the northeast is connected with the Black Sea through the Da Daniil Strait and the Bosporus Strait. The Mediterranean belongs to the Ionian Sea, Adriatic Sea and Aegean Sea. The Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the underwater ridge between them divide the Mediterranean into two parts. The countries bordering the Mediterranean are: Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Greece, Albania, Yugoslavia, Croatia, Italy, Spain, France, Portugal and Morocco.
The Mediterranean climate is unique, with dry heat and little rain in summer and warm and humid in winter. This climate makes the surrounding rivers rainy in winter and dry up in summer. Few places in the world have this kind of climate. According to statistics, the total proportion of * * * is less than 2%. Because of the special climate here, German meteorologist Ke Ben regarded it as a special category when he divided the global climate, and called it Mediterranean climate.
Although there are many rivers flowing into the Mediterranean, such as Nile, Rhone and Ebro. Because it is located in the subtropical zone, the evaporation is too large, far exceeding the supply of river water and rainwater, which makes the water income in the Mediterranean less than the expenditure, and the salinity of seawater is much higher than that in the Atlantic Ocean. The water from the Atlantic Ocean flows into the Mediterranean Sea from the upper layer of the Strait of Gibraltar, and the high salt water from the Mediterranean Sea flows into the Atlantic Ocean from the lower layer of the Strait. The Atlantic Ocean is very big and there is plenty of water. The amount of clean water flowing into the Mediterranean Sea is very large, up to 7000 cubic meters per second. Without the continuous water supply from the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean will dry up and become a huge salt pit in about 1000 years.
Now, the Mediterranean Sea is a subsidiary sea of the Atlantic Ocean. However, in geological history, it is older than the qualification of the Atlantic Ocean. About 65 million years ago, the ancient Mediterranean was a vast Tethys Sea. It has a wide range, crossing the Himalayas eastward and heading straight for the ancient Pacific Ocean. At that time, it was second only to the Pacific Ocean, and the Atlantic Ocean had not yet formed! Later, the Eurasian plate in the north drifted, approached the Indian plate in the south, collided and squeezed out a Himalayan mountain, and the Tethys Sea retreated to the present Mediterranean Sea.
The Mediterranean coast is one of the cradles of marine civilization. Phoenicians, Cretes, Greeks, and later Portugal and Spain are all nations with developed navigation industry, and many great navigators were born here. Columbus, who discovered America, Da Gama, who opened the Atlantic and Indian Ocean routes, and Magellan, who sailed around the world for the first time, are all outstanding representatives. At the same time, the famous European Renaissance movement was first launched here. Copernicus, the founder of Heliocentrism, and Galileo, the great physicist, were also born here. People here have made important contributions to the progress of modern human science and civilization.