Black Sea

About Black Sea: 

• It is a large in land sea located at the southeastern extremity of Europe.
• It covers an area of approximately 436,000 square kilometers (168,000 square miles).
• Bordering countries: It is bordered by Ukraine to the north, Russia to the northeast, Georgia to the east, Turkey to the south, and Bulgaria and Romania to the west.
• Russia has the longest coastline on the sea (2,300 km), followed by Turkey (1,329 km) and Ukraine (1,282 km).
• The Crimean Peninsula extends into it from the north.
• It is connected with the Aegean Sea (an arm of the Mediterranean Sea) through the Bosporus Strait, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles Strait, and with the Sea of Azov by the Kerch Strait.
• Created when structural upheavals in Asia Minor split off the Caspian basin from the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea gradually became isolated; salinity is now less than half that of the world’s oceans.
• The Black Sea receives freshwater inflows all around the basin. It is a meeting point for many rivers, such as the Danube, Southern Bug, Dnieper, Rioni ,and Dniester.
• It is the largest meromictic basin, which means the movement of water between the lower and upper layers of the Sea is rare.
• It is one of the world's largest anoxic basins, meaning it has areas with very little dissolved oxygen.

Islands: It contains several islands, with the largest ones being Snake Island (Ukraine), Giresun Island (Turkey), and St. Ivan Island (Bulgaria).

Q1: What is a Strait?

A strait can be defined as a naturally formed narrow strip of water between two continents, islands or two larger bodies of water. It is usually used for navigational purposes and is sometimes referred to as a channel when it is found between two land masses.

Source: Watch an exploding Ukrainian drone boat dodge fire from the air to kill one of the small, high-speed Russian ships still fighting in the Black Sea