The Bay of Bengal
Bengal, Bay of, an arm of the Indian Ocean off the southern coast of Asia. It is separated from the Andaman Sea by the Andaman and Nicobar islands and is bordered by Sri Lanka (Ceylon), India, Bangladesh, and Burma. Except along a narrow continental shelf, depths generally range between 6,000 and 13,000 feet (1,800 and 4,000 m). The chief rivers entering the bay are the Ganges and Brahmaputra; they flow through a delta that is partly in India and partly in Bangladesh. Major ports on or near the bay include Chennai (Madras), Visakhapatnam, and Kolkata (Calcutta) in India and Chittagong in Bangladesh. Violent storms, including tropical cyclones, sometimes strike the coast.