World's Largest Bay by Area

The Bay of Bengal occupies the northeastern Indian Ocean. Its western side adjoins India and the Sri Lankan side of the basin, its northern end receives the Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna delta, and its eastern margins approach Myanmar and the Andaman–Nicobar island chain. Area estimates depend on where the southern geographic boundary is drawn.

Major South Asian rivers deliver freshwater and sediment to the northern bay. Banglapedia describes the deltaic northern coast, continental shelf and extensive deep-sea plain as important geographic features. The waters of the bay are not the same metric as the area of the rivers' drainage basins.

Guinness World Records assigns the Bay of Bengal an area of 2,172,000 square kilometres and identifies it as the largest bay. Banglapedia describes the area approximately as 2.2 million square kilometres, reflecting a rounded estimate or different delineation. This record follows the Guinness figure rather than mixing bay area with depth, coastline length or drainage-basin size.