Gulf of Mexico Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico () is an ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. The U.S. states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida border the Gulf on the north, which are often referred to as the "Third Coast", in comparison with the U.S. Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The Gulf of Mexico formed approximately 300 million years
Name of Mexico Name of Mexico The name of Mexico has several hypotheses that entail the origin, history, and use of the name "Mexico", which dates back to 14th century Mesoamerica. The Nahuatl word "Mexico" means "place of the Mexica" but the ethnonym "Mexicatl" itself is of unknown etymology. An alternate possibility is that the name may come from the word "mexixin", a cress that grew in the swamplands of Lake Texcoco. It was an edible grass that the Aztecs or Mexica survived on as they settled where today lies México City. The country México did not name its capital after itself, as