Mediterranean Sea Mediterranean Sea as follows: Stretching from the Strait of Gibraltar in the west to the entrances to the Dardanelles and the Suez Canal in the east, the Mediterranean Sea is bounded by the coasts of Europe, Africa and Asia, and is divided into two deep basins: Being nearly landlocked affects conditions in the Mediterranean Sea: for instance, tides are very limited as a result of the narrow connection with the Atlantic Ocean. The Mediterranean is characterised and immediately recognised by its deep blue colour. Evaporation greatly exceeds precipitation and river runoff in the Mediterranean, a fact that is central to
Mediterranean Sea or Islamic sources. It may be to contrast with the Black Sea. In Persian, the name was translated as "Baḥr-i Safīd", which was also used in later Ottoman Turkish. It is probably the origin of the colloquial Greek Άσπρη Θάλασσα. Johann Knobloch claims that in Classical Antiquity, cultures in the Levant used colours to refer to the cardinal points: black referred to the north (explaining the name Black Sea), yellow or blue to east, red to south (i.e., the Red Sea), and "white" to west. This would explain both the Turkish "Akdeniz" (White Sea) and the Arab nomenclature described above.