Gulf Coast of the United States Pensacola, St. Petersburg, Tampa, and increasingly, Sarasota. All are the centers of their respective metropolitan areas and contain large ports. (Baton Rouge is relatively far from the Gulf of Mexico; its port is on the Mississippi River, as is the port of New Orleans.) The Gulf Coast is made of many inlets, bays, and lagoons. The coast is also intersected by numerous rivers, the largest of which is the Mississippi River. Much of the land along the Gulf Coast is, or was, marshland. Ringing the Gulf Coast is the Gulf Coastal Plain which reaches from Southern Texas to the western
Offshore oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico (United States) blowout) began on April 20, 2010, in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect. Killing eleven people, it is considered the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry and estimated to be 8% to 31% larger in volume than the previous largest, the Ixtoc I oil spill. In 2012, federal leases in the Gulf of Mexico produced of oil, which made up 19.5% of all U.S. oil production that year, and more than that of any U.S. state other than Texas. The 2012 production was less than the in 2009; however, due to new