On 20 January 2025, U.S. president Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14172 directing the United States government adopt the name Gulf of America, specifying an area of the US continental shelf "extending to the seaward boundary with Mexico and Cuba".

[34] While the Interior Department confirmed that the Gulf of America name was effective for US federal agencies on 24 January,[35] the change does not apply in an international context.

[41][42] The International Hydrographic Organization publication Limits of Oceans and Seas[b] defines the southeast limit of the Gulf of Mexico as:[10] A line joining Cape Catoche Light (21°37′N 87°04′W / 21.617°N 87.067°W / 21.617; -87.067) with the Light on Cape San Antonio in Cuba, through this island to the meridian of 83°W and to the Northward along this meridian to the latitude of the South point of the Dry Tortugas (24°35'N), along this parallel Eastward to Rebecca Shoal (82°35'W) thence through the shoals and Florida Keys to the mainland at the eastern end of Florida Bay and all the narrow waters between the Dry Tortugas and the mainland being considered to be within the Gulf.

Before the late Triassic, the area consisted of dry land, which included continental crust that now underlies Yucatán, within the middle of the supercontinent Pangaea.

As interpreted by Roy Van Arsdale and Randel T. Cox, this mountain range was breached in the late Cretaceous by the formation of the Mississippi Embayment.

During the late Jurassic, continued rifting widened the basin and progressed to the point that seafloor spreading and formation of oceanic crust occurred.

Initially, the crustal stretching and cooling combination caused about 5–7 km (3.1–4.3 miles) of tectonic subsidence of the central thin transitional and oceanic crust.

Particularly during the Cenozoic, a time of relative stability for the coastal zones,[55] thick clastic wedges built out the continental shelf along the northwestern and northern margins of the basin.

[57] Seven main areas are given as:[citation needed] As early as the Maya civilization, the Gulf of Mexico was used as a trade route off the coast of the Yucatán Peninsula and present-day Veracruz.

[59] In his letters, Vespucci described this trip, and once Juan de la Cosa returned to Spain, a famous world map was produced.

In 1506, Hernán Cortés participated in the conquest of Hispaniola and Cuba, receiving a large estate of land and enslaving Indigenous people for his efforts.

This was the first European encounter with an advanced civilization in the Americas, with solidly built buildings and complex social structures which they found comparable to those of the Old World.

The contract gave him one year to gather an army, leave Spain, be large enough to found at least two towns of 100 people each, and garrison two more fortresses anywhere along the coast.

In 1697, French sailor Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville was chosen by the Minister of Marine to lead an expedition to rediscover the mouth of the Mississippi River and to settle Louisiana, which French explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle named the English-coveted region in 1682 to honour King Louis XIV of France D'Iberville's fleet sailed from Brest on 24 October 1698, reaching Santa Rosa Island near Pensacola founded by the Spanish on 25 January of the following year; he sailed from there to Mobile Bay and explored Massacre Island.

[62] The southwestern and southern shores lie along the Mexican states of Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán, and the northernmost tip of Quintana Roo.

The outer margins of the wide continental shelves of Yucatán and Florida receive cooler, nutrient-enriched waters from the deep by a process known as upwelling, which stimulates plankton growth in the euphotic zone.

The land that forms the gulf's coast, including many long, narrow barrier islands, is almost uniformly low-lying and is defined by marshes, swamps, and stretches of sandy beach.

Another important commercial activity is fishing; major catches include red snapper, amberjack, tilefish, swordfish, and various grouper, as well as shrimp and crabs.

Other important industries along the coast include shipping, petrochemical processing and storage, military use, paper manufacture, and tourism.The gulf is considered aseismic; however, mild tremors have been recorded throughout history (usually 5.0 or less on the Richter magnitude scale).

[70] According to The Tampa Tribune on the following day, earthquake tremors were last felt in Florida in 1952, recorded in Quincy, 32 km (20 miles) northwest of Tallahassee.

The shipwreck lay forgotten at the bottom of the sea until it was discovered in 2002 by an oilfield inspection crew working for the Okeanos Gas Gathering Company (OGGC).

In 2007, an expedition led by Texas A&M University and funded by OGGC under an agreement with the Minerals Management Service (now BOEM) was launched to undertake the deepest scientific archaeological excavation to that date to study the site on the seafloor and recover artifacts for public display in the Louisiana State Museum.

Videos and a documentary about the project, Mystery Mardi Gras Shipwreck, was made by Nautilus Productions with help from BOEM, Texas A&M University, the Florida Public Archaeology Network[72] and Veolia Environmental.

The steamship was en route to New Orleans, sailing southeast of the entrance to the Mississippi River; she was being escorted by USS PC-566, captained by Lieutenant Commander Herbert G. Claudius.

[7] The Smithsonian Institution Gulf of Mexico holdings are expected to provide an important baseline of understanding for future scientific studies on the impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

[81] In 1973 the United States Environmental Protection Agency prohibited the dumping of undiluted chemical waste by manufacturingsediment interests into the gulf, and the military confessed to similar behavior in waters off Horn Island.

[86] Poor agricultural practices in the northern portion of the Gulf of Mexico have led to a tremendous increase of nitrogen and phosphorus in neighboring marine ecosystems, which has resulted in algae blooms and a lack of available oxygen.

This was compared with a 52% to 48% male-female ratio found in reference sites, showing impaired reproductive output for fish populations inhabiting hypoxic coastal zones.

In July, BP agreed to pay $18.7 billion to the U.S. government, the states of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, as well as 400 local authorities.

[96] A study published in the Journal of Climate by Dongmin Kim, Sang-Ki Lee, and Hosmay Lopez, found that the Madden–Julian oscillation strengthens the North American low-level jet, which increases the flow of Gulf moisture and atmospheric instability into the Central United States, furthering tornadogenesis in the region.