The spatial decay of energy density of tidal internal waves (TIW) was studied using field data taken in the Indian Ocean near the Mascarene Ridge and in the Canary Basin of the eastern Atlantic near the Heyres-Irving-Cruiser chain of seamounts. Several moorings were deployed at distances between 90 and 1745 km east of these topographic features, with instruments located in the depth range 500--2500 m. The energy densities of TIW averaged over the spring-neap cycle were calculated using semidiurnal tidal components of current and temperature time series as well as local vertical gradients of temperature and density. It was found that the horizontal component of TIW, EH, is less depth-dependent compared to the vertical component, Eζ, although both components showed a general decrease of magnitude with the distance from topography. The decrease of total energy density ETW = EH + Eζ with distance from the topography is more rapid than that assumed in the work of Morozov <1995>, and followed an inverse power law. At a distance of about x ≈ 10λ from the topography (where λ is the wavelength of the first mode), ETW in the main thermocline becomes equal to the energy density of the forcing barotropic tide, whereas for x/λ < 2, ETW exceeds the energy of the entire range of internal waves of the Garrett-Munk spectrum. A nonhydrostatic, nonlinear, two-dimensional numerical model shows a reasonable agreement with the observations for x/λ < 2--3, but in the far field it predicts a faster spatial decay of ETW than observed, possibly because of topographic generation of TIW along the measurement swath. The turbulent diffusivity estimates based on the McComas and Muller <1981> model exceeded 10-4 m2/s within the main pycnocline at x = 100 km and suggest mixing enhancements due to TIW up to distances of 1000 km from the topography.