Geographical description
of the Mediterranean Sea

Italy is a peninsula surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea (map from www.graphicmaps.com)

Map provided by Maps & World Atlas

The Mediterranean is the largest semi-enclosed European sea. In the north it's mostly bordered by mountain chains sloping steeply into the sea. The western and the eastern basin are separated from the Siculo-Tunisian channel, that acts as a geographical frontier.

The Mediterranean is one of the most delicate sea in the world. It’s 1800 Km long, from North to South, and 3800 Km wide, from East to West, with only two accesses to the open sea, the Straits of Gibraltar, to the Atlantic Ocean, and the Suez Channel, to the Red Sea. The Straits of Gibraltar, that is 15 Km wide and 365 m deep, assure a modest water change, but the Suez channel, only 190 m in widh and 17 m in depht, is too small to permit a sufficient water mixing. Evaporation exceeds precipitation and river runoff. This results in the water being saltier than in the oceans.
The main rivers are Ebro, Rhone, Po, Danube and Nile; near their reaches the water is more fresh.
An other Mediterranean characteristic is the “homeothermy”, word that means “same temperature”. In fact, at the depht of 500 m, its water has a constant temperature, around the 12°C.