Which body of water are Madagascar and Sri Lanka located in?

Madagascar and Sri Lanka are both located in the Indian Ocean.

The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of Earth’s five named oceans, covering roughly 70.6 million square kilometres. It stretches between Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Southern Ocean, and its waters include many islands and island nations.

Madagascar lies off the southeastern coast of Africa and is the Indian Ocean’s largest island. Sri Lanka sits just southeast of the Indian subcontinent, separated from India by the Palk Strait and Gulf of Mannar. Their locations make both islands important landmarks in the ocean’s western and northern regions.

A common mistake is to associate Sri Lanka with the Pacific because it is a large tropical island, or to place Madagascar in the Atlantic because it is near Africa. Neither is correct: Madagascar’s eastern coastline faces the Indian Ocean, while Sri Lanka is entirely within the Indian Ocean basin. The ocean also contains the Maldives, Seychelles, Mauritius, Réunion, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.