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
Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies State of the Gulf of Mexico Summit 2014 held March 24–27 in Houston, Texas, Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía - INEGI) and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi signed an agreement to cooperate in addressing some of the most complex issues relating to the Gulf. The agreement includes shared research projects, the interchange of findings, and other collaborations on issues ranging from the protection of endangered marine species to offshore drilling and contamination. The State of the Gulf of Mexico Summit 2017 will be held March 26–28, 2017 in Houston, Texas. The Deepwater Horizon oil