The warm, well-defined, swift, relatively narrow ocean current which exists off the east coast of the United States, beginning near Cape Hatteras. The term also applies to the oceanic system of currents that dominate the western and northern Atlantic Ocean: the Florida current, which flows through the Florida Straits between the Florida Keys and Cuba and northwards; the Gulf Stream, which begins around Cape Hatteras and flows northeasterly off the continental slope into the North Atlantic; and the North Atlantic current, which begins around the Grand Banks off Newfoundland and continues east-northeastwards towards the British Isles.