Mississippi Gulf Coast Mississippi Gulf Coast The Mississippi Gulf Coast, also known as the Mississippi Gulf Coast region, or simply The Coast, is the area of southern Mississippi along the Mississippi Sound along the Gulf Of Mexico. The term has traditionally referred to the three counties that lie directly on the Mississippi Sound that meet up with the Gulf of Mexico within the state: Hancock County, Harrison County, and Jackson County. The U. S. Census Bureau divided the Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) for the Mississippi Gulf Coast in 2003, which previously had been the three coastal counties, into two MSAs that included two
Gulf of Mexico ago as a result of plate tectonics. The Gulf of Mexico basin is roughly oval and is approximately wide and floored by sedimentary rocks and recent sediments. It is connected to part of the Atlantic Ocean through the Florida Straits between the U.S. and Cuba, and with the Caribbean Sea (with which it forms the American Mediterranean Sea) via the Yucatán Channel between Mexico and Cuba. With the narrow connection to the Atlantic, the Gulf experiences very small tidal ranges. The size of the Gulf basin is approximately 1.6 million km (615,000 sq mi). Almost half of the basin is