The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world’s oceans with a total area of about 106,460,000 square kilometers (41,100,000 square miles). It covers approximately 20 percent of the Earth’s surface and about 29 percent of its water surface area. It occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Eurasian and Africa to the east, and the Americas to the west. As one component of the interconnected global ocean, it is connected in the north to the Arctic Ocean, to the Pacific Ocean in the southwest, the Indian Ocean in the southeast, and the Southern Ocean in the south (other definitions describe the Atlantic as extending southward to Antarctica). The Equatorial Counter Current subdivides it into the North Atlantic Ocean and the South Atlantic Ocean. It is also the youngest ocean on the planet, formed 200 million years ago by the division of the supercontinent Pangea.
The name goes back to the term Atlantis thalassa of the ancient Greek language:’ Sea of Atlas’. (Source: Wikipedia)
