Mediterranean Sea The long artificial Suez Canal in the southeast connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea. Large islands in the Mediterranean include Cyprus, Crete, Euboea, Rhodes, Lesbos, Chios, Kefalonia, Corfu, Limnos, Samos, Naxos and Andros in the Eastern Mediterranean; Sicily, Cres, Krk, Brač, Hvar, Pag, Korčula and Malta in the central Mediterranean; Sardinia, Corsica, and the Balearic Islands: Ibiza, Majorca, and Menorca in the Western Mediterranean. The typical Mediterranean climate has hot, humid, and dry summers and mild, rainy winters. Crops of the region include olives, grapes, oranges, tangerines, and cork. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the
Mediterranean Sea crisis, before being refilled by the Zanclean flood about 5.3 million years ago. It covers an approximate area of 2.5 million km (965,000 sq mi), but its connection to the Atlantic (the Strait of Gibraltar) is only wide. The Strait of Gibraltar is a narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Gibraltar and Spain in Europe from Morocco in Africa. In oceanography, it is sometimes called the "Eurafrican Mediterranean Sea" or the "European Mediterranean Sea" to distinguish it from mediterranean seas elsewhere. The Mediterranean Sea has an average depth of and the deepest recorded