Seas
The world's oceans and seas
50 oceans and seas, each with its own page: how big and how deep it is, which coasts it touches and what makes it special.
- Pacific Ocean 165 250 000 km² The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest ocean on Earth.
- Atlantic Ocean 106 460 000 km² The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest ocean on Earth.
- Indian Ocean 70 560 000 km² The Indian Ocean is the third-largest ocean on Earth and the warmest of all.
- Southern Ocean 20 327 000 km² The Southern Ocean flows all the way around Antarctica, the icy continent at the South Pole.
- Arctic Ocean 14 060 000 km² The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the five oceans.
- Sargasso Sea 5 200 000 km² The Sargasso Sea is a huge patch of the North Atlantic Ocean that has no coast at all.
- Philippine Sea 5 000 000 km² The Philippine Sea is a huge part of the western Pacific Ocean, east of the Philippines.
- Coral Sea 4 791 000 km² The Coral Sea is a huge sea of the Pacific Ocean off the north-east coast of Australia.
- Arabian Sea 3 862 000 km² The Arabian Sea is part of the northern Indian Ocean.
- South China Sea 3 500 000 km² The South China Sea is a large sea in South-East Asia, between China, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines.
- Weddell Sea 2 800 000 km² The Weddell Sea is a huge, icy bay of the Southern Ocean on the coast of Antarctica.
- Caribbean Sea 2 754 000 km² The Caribbean Sea is a warm, tropical sea of the Atlantic Ocean between Central America, South America and the islands of the West Indies.
- Mediterranean Sea 2 500 000 km² The Mediterranean Sea lies between Europe, Africa and Asia.
- Gulf of Guinea 2 350 000 km² The Gulf of Guinea is a huge bend in the Atlantic Ocean along the coast of West and Central Africa.
- Tasman Sea 2 300 000 km² The Tasman Sea is the wide stretch of the Pacific Ocean between Australia and New Zealand.
- Bering Sea 2 300 000 km² The Bering Sea is a cold sea in the far north of the Pacific Ocean, between Alaska and Russia.
- Bay of Bengal 2 172 000 km² The Bay of Bengal is a huge, roughly triangular bay in the north-east of the Indian Ocean.
- Sea of Okhotsk 1 583 000 km² The Sea of Okhotsk is a cold sea in the north-western Pacific, between Russia and the Japanese island of Hokkaido.
- Gulf of Mexico 1 550 000 km² The Gulf of Mexico is a large, warm sea of the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the United States, Mexico and Cuba.
- Gulf of Alaska 1 533 000 km² The Gulf of Alaska is a wide arm of the Pacific Ocean along the southern coast of Alaska.
- Barents Sea 1 405 000 km² The Barents Sea is a cold sea of the Arctic Ocean, north of Norway and Russia.
- Norwegian Sea 1 383 000 km² The Norwegian Sea is a deep, cold sea off the coast of Norway, crossed by the Arctic Circle.
- Hudson Bay 1 230 000 km² Hudson Bay is a huge but shallow bay in north-eastern Canada, joined to the Atlantic by Hudson Strait.
- Greenland Sea 1 205 000 km² The Greenland Sea lies between the icy east coast of Greenland, Iceland and the islands of Svalbard.
- Sea of Japan 978 000 km² The Sea of Japan lies between Japan, Korea and Russia.
- Ross Sea 960 000 km² The Ross Sea is a deep bay of the Southern Ocean on the coast of Antarctica.
- Labrador Sea 841 000 km² The Labrador Sea is an arm of the North Atlantic between the Labrador Peninsula in Canada and Greenland.
- Andaman Sea 797 700 km² The Andaman Sea is a sea in the north-east of the Indian Ocean, next to Myanmar, Thailand and Malaysia.
- East China Sea 752 000 km² The East China Sea is a wide arm of the Pacific Ocean between China, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan.
- Baffin Bay 689 000 km² Baffin Bay is a cold, icy sea between Baffin Island in Canada and the west coast of Greenland.
- Arafura Sea 650 000 km² The Arafura Sea lies between the north coast of Australia and the island of New Guinea.
- North Sea 570 000 km² The North Sea is a shallow arm of the Atlantic Ocean between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and France.
- Beaufort Sea 476 000 km² The Beaufort Sea is an icy sea of the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska and northern Canada.
- Red Sea 438 000 km² The Red Sea is a long, narrow sea between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.
- Black Sea 436 400 km² The Black Sea lies between Europe and Asia and is bordered by six countries.
- Gulf of Aden 410 000 km² The Gulf of Aden is a deep arm of the sea between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa.
- Baltic Sea 390 000 km² The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean in northern Europe, with nine countries on its shores.
- Yellow Sea 380 000 km² The Yellow Sea lies between China and the Korean Peninsula in the western Pacific Ocean.
- Gulf of Thailand 320 000 km² The Gulf of Thailand is a warm, shallow bay of the South China Sea, surrounded by Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Malaysia.
- Java Sea 320 000 km² The Java Sea is a warm, shallow sea in Indonesia, surrounded by the big islands of Borneo, Java, Sumatra and Sulawesi.
- Tyrrhenian Sea 275 000 km² The Tyrrhenian Sea is the part of the Mediterranean enclosed by mainland Italy and the islands of Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily.
- Persian Gulf 251 000 km² The Persian Gulf is a warm, shallow arm of the sea between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.
- Bay of Biscay 223 000 km² The Bay of Biscay is a large bay of the Atlantic Ocean between the west coast of France and the north coast of Spain.
- Aegean Sea 214 000 km² The Aegean Sea is the part of the Mediterranean between Greece and Turkey, where Europe meets Asia.
- Ionian Sea 169 000 km² The Ionian Sea lies between southern Italy, Albania and Greece.
- Gulf of California 160 000 km² The Gulf of California is a long arm of the Pacific Ocean between mainland Mexico and the Baja California peninsula.
- Adriatic Sea 138 600 km² The Adriatic Sea is the long, narrow arm of the Mediterranean between Italy and the Balkan Peninsula.
- English Channel 75 000 km² The English Channel is the arm of the Atlantic Ocean between Great Britain and France.
- Irish Sea 46 000 km² The Irish Sea lies between the islands of Ireland and Great Britain.
- Sea of Azov 37 600 km² The Sea of Azov is the shallowest sea in the world: even its deepest spot is only about 14 metres deep.
How these oceans and seas were chosen
The five oceans are all here. The rest is a choice: the biggest seas, gulfs and bays, the ones children hear about first — the Mediterranean, the North Sea, the Caribbean — and a few that are special for another reason, like the Sargasso Sea, which has no coast at all. Together that makes 50 pages.
The sea has no fences. Where one ocean ends and a sea begins is a line that people agreed on, and different atlases draw it in different places — which is why the same sea can have a different size in two books. Where the sources disagree, the page says so and gives the range instead of quietly choosing one number.
Every one of them stands on the globe
These pages are not only a list: every entry here has a place on the spinning globe, at its real coordinates. From far away the planet is a plain blue ball — detail only arrives as you zoom in, and then each of these is standing exactly where it belongs.
It works the other way round too: whatever you click on the globe opens its page, and every page links back to that exact spot on the globe. You can wander from a map into a text and back again without ever using the search box.