Ocean Floor Map

Bab el Mandeb depth map

Strait: average depth about 2 m, deepest 8 m (GEBCO_2026 grid).

Tap or scroll to load the interactive map

Sea level todayDrag the slider to lower the sea and see the land that would appear.

Sea level in metres below today’s. A simple bathtub model: it lowers the sea everywhere by the same amount and does not simulate how the water would really drain.

Key

Sea depth

  • Deeper than 6,000 m
  • 4,000 to 6,000 m
  • 2,000 to 4,000 m
  • 1,000 to 2,000 m
  • 200 to 1,000 m
  • Shallower than 200 m (the continental shelf)

Land height

  • Land up to 500 m
  • 500 to 2,000 m
  • Above 2,000 m

Drain the oceans

  • Seabed exposed when the sea is lowered A dashed white line marks today’s coast.

How to read the map. Darker blue is deeper water. Tap anywhere to see how deep the sea is there, or how high the land is, and the nearest named undersea feature. Depths come from the GEBCO_2026 grid, which in most of the deep ocean is predicted from satellite measurements of the sea surface rather than surveyed by ship, and the map’s tiles are coarser than the grid, so narrow trenches read shallower on the map than their true depth. Not for navigation.

Bab el Mandeb at a glance

  • 2 maverage depth
  • 2 mmedian depth
  • 8 mmaximum depth
  • 23 km²water area

Bab el Mandeb is a strait. It is very shallow: nowhere in it is deeper than a few tens of metres in the grid. Inside its outline the GEBCO grid has about 23 km² of water, with an average depth of about 2 m (the middle value is 2 m) and a maximum of 8 m, found at 13.07° N, 43.34° E.

Open the map at the deepest cell and tap to read the depth.

How deep is each part of the Bab el Mandeb?

The bar splits the Bab el Mandeb's water by depth. Each colour is a depth band, and the shares add up to 100%.

  • 0 to 200 m: 100%
  • 200 to 1,000 m: 0%
  • 1,000 to 4,000 m: 0%
  • 4,000 to 6,000 m: 0%
  • below 6,000 m: 0%

Named features near the deepest point: Aden Ridge (942 km), Red Sea Rift (1,048 km), Arabian Basin (2,384 km), Eratosthenes Seamount (2,532 km).

The Bab el Mandeb if sea level dropped

The slider on the map lowers the sea in steps. This table shows how much of the Bab el Mandeb's water would be land at each step.

Sea level lowered byBecomes landShare of its water
10 m23 km²100%
20 m23 km²100%
50 m23 km²100%
80 m23 km²100%
120 m23 km²100%
200 m23 km²100%
500 m23 km²100%
1,000 m23 km²100%
2,000 m23 km²100%
3,000 m23 km²100%
4,000 m23 km²100%
6,000 m23 km²100%

A simple bathtub model: it lowers the sea everywhere by the same amount and does not simulate how water would really drain.

Nearby seas

Nearest by the centre of each outline. All oceans and seas

Frequently asked questions

How deep is the Bab el Mandeb?

On average about 2 m in the GEBCO grid (the middle value is 2 m). The deepest cell inside its outline is 8 m, at 13.07° N, 43.34° E.

How big is the Bab el Mandeb?

About 23 km² of water inside its Natural Earth outline, counted from the grid cells that are below sea level.

How much of the Bab el Mandeb would be land if sea level dropped?

With the sea 10 m lower, about 23 km² (100%) of its water would be land. At 6,000 m lower, 100% would be. This is a simple bathtub model that lowers the sea evenly everywhere.

Data: depths from the GEBCO_2026 grid, statistics worked out inside the Natural Earth outline of the strait. See data sources and licences. The GEBCO Grid should NOT be used for navigation or for any other purpose involving safety at sea.

All oceans and seas · Undersea features · Drain the oceans

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