The Bay of Bengal is a bay that forms the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean. It resembles a triangle in shape, and is bordered on the east by Malay Peninsula, and on the west by India. On the northern tip of the "bay" lies the Bengal region, comprising the Indian state of West Bengal and the country of Bangladesh, thus the name. The southern extremes reach the island country of Sri Lanka, and the Indian Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
The Bay of Bengal occupies an area of 2,172,000 km². It is bordered by India and Sri Lanka to the West, Bangladesh to the North, and Myanmar and the southern part of Thailand to the East. Its southern boundary extends as an imaginary line from Dondra Head at the southern end of Sri Lanka to the northern tip of Sumatra. A number of large rivers – Ganges, Brahmaputra, Irrawaddy, Godavari, Mahanadi, Krishna and Cauvery – flow into the Bay of Bengal. Among the important ports are Yangon, Kolkata/Calcutta, Chittagong, Cuddalore, Kakinada, Machlipatnam, Madras, Paradip and Vishakapatnam.