The Western Indo-Pacific is a biogeographic region of the Earth's seas, comprising the tropical waters of the eastern and central Indian Ocean. It is part of the larger Indo-Pacific, which includes the tropical Indian Ocean, the western and central Pacific Ocean, and the seas connecting the two in the general area of Indonesia. The Western Indo-Pacific may be classified as a marine realm, one of the great biogeographic divisions of the world's ocean basins, or as a subrealm of the Indo-Pacific.
The Western Indo-Pacific does not include the temperate and polar waters of the Indian Ocean, which are part of separate marine realms. The boundary between the Western Indo-Pacific and Temperate Southern Africa marine realms lies in South Africa near the border with Mozambique, where the southernmost mangroves and tropical corals are found.
Subdivisions
The Western Indo-Pacific is further subdivided into marine provinces, and the marine provinces divided into marine ecoregions:
Spalding, Mark D., Helen E. Fox, Gerald R. Allen, Nick Davidson et al. "Marine Ecoregions of the World: A Bioregionalization of Coastal and Shelf Areas". Bioscience Vol. 57 No. 7, July/August 2007, pp. 573–583. [1]