Which ocean separates North America and Europe?

The Atlantic Ocean separates North America and Europe. It occupies the basin between the Americas to the west and Europe and Africa to the east, linking the Arctic Ocean in the north with the Southern Ocean region in the south.

The Atlantic is the second-largest of Earth’s five commonly recognized oceanic divisions and covers about 85 million square kilometres. Its name comes from Greek mythology: “Atlantic” refers to the Titan Atlas, whose name was associated with the waters beyond the Pillars of Hercules, near the modern Strait of Gibraltar.

The ocean has played an enormous role in exploration, migration, trade and conflict. Norse sailors reached North America centuries before Christopher Columbus, but Columbus’s 1492 voyage helped launch sustained European expansion across the Atlantic. The ocean also carried the Columbian Exchange and the transatlantic slave trade. Today, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge marks a major seafloor-spreading zone, while currents such as the Gulf Stream influence weather on both sides of the ocean.