Every year, millions of tourists visit the island of Ibiza and its Mediterranean coast, known for its magnificent beaches and spectacular scenery. The biological diversity of this area and its pleasantly warm waters make it a perfect holiday destination. After years of experience in the boat rentals in IbizaWe consider ourselves to be true experts on this sea. That is why, in this post we share with you 8 curiosities of the Mediterranean Sea and its secrets.

The Mediterranean Sea is an inland, intercontinental sea separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Strait of Gibraltar between Spain and Morocco. It occupies about 2,500,000 square kilometres and is further subdivided into smaller seas along its length.

Surely you knew these facts, but here are 8 characteristics or curiosities that you didn't know.

1. Mediterranean Sea countries

It bathes 20 countries and 3 continents. The Mediterranean Sea is surrounded by twenty countries belonging to the continents of Europe, Africa and Asia. These include Italy, Spain, France, Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. Some 100 million visitors make the Mediterranean coasts one of the world's main tourist hotspots.

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2. represents an 1% of the surface of the oceans

The Mediterranean Sea has a surface area of 2.51 million square kilometres. Even so, it represents an insignificant 1 % of the oceans' total surface area. It has 46,000 kilometres of coastline.

3. The maximum depth of the Mediterranean Sea

The average depth in the Mediterranean is 1,430 metres, however, in the Matapan Trench, near GreeceThe deepest depth in the sea is more than 5,000 metres, 5,267 metres to be precise. This is a far cry from the deepest documented ocean depth, near the island of Guam, north of the Philippine Islands, in the famous Mariana Trench, with a depth of 11,033 metres.

4. In Ancient Rome it was called Mare Nostrum.

Mare Nostrum was the name given to the Mediterranean Sea by the Romans in their imperial era, which meant "OUR SEA in Latin. The etymology that has survived to the present day also comes from the Latin "Mar Medi Terraneum", meaning "sea in the middle of the land".

5. The Strait of Gibraltar: the only source of renewal

The Mediterranean is connected to the Atlantic Ocean, which is its only source of water renewal and replenishment. It does so only through the Strait of Gibraltar, which separates Europe and Africa and is 14.4 kilometres at its narrowest point. This is why, one could say that the Mediterranean basin is "almost" closed.

6. Great marine diversity

The Mediterranean is one of the seas with the greatest marine diversity on the planet. This has been determined by a study coordinated by the CSIC (Spanish National Research Council), which places it fourth on the list after Australian, Japanese and Chinese waters. It has some 17,000 marine species described to date.

The study also found that this sea has areas of high concentrations of ecologically important species, such as the Strait of Gibraltar, the Alboran Sea, the Spanish Mediterranean and associated African area, and the northern Adriatic and Aegean Seas. But these regions also have a high concentration of endangered, threatened and vulnerable species.

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7. The region with the highest number of invasive species: over 600.

The same study found that the Mediterranean is also the region with the highest number of invasive species, approximately 637. a 4% of all those inhabiting the area. Researchers believe that most of these species came from the Red Sea and entered the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal. Of these more than 600 invasive species, more than 200 are molluscs and 106 are crustaceans.

8. A threatened sea

According to Greenpeace 21% to 54% of all microplastic fragments in the world are found in the Mediterranean basin and environmental pollution, fishing and uncontrolled urbanisation are causing the loss of natural habitats.

Another significant threat is the disappearance of underwater seagrass meadows. oceanic posidoniaa marine plant that forms meadows between the surface and a depth of 40 metres and is responsible for the clarity of the waters of Ibiza and Formentera. It is a species endemic to the Mediterranean and declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco.