The sea at La Jolla, California in the Gulf of Catalina

A sea generally refers to a large body of salt water, but the term is used in other contexts as well. Most commonly, it means a large expanse of saline water connected with an ocean, and is commonly used as a synonym for ocean.^[1] It is also used sometimes to describe a large saline lake that lacks a natural outlet, such as the Caspian Sea.

Arctic (belonging to the Arctic Ocean) and Antarctic (Southern Ocean) seas, as well as some other seas freeze in winter. This occurs below the freezing point of pure water, at about -1.8 °C (28.8 °F). Frozen salt water becomes sea ice.^[2]

History [link]

Phoenician (yellow) and Greek (red) colonies in the Mediterranean in the 1st millennium BC

Humans navigated seas from antiquity. Ancient Egyptians and Phoenicians navigated the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Hannu was the first see explorer of whom there is any information. He sailed along the Red Sea and further to the Arabian Peninsula and the African Coast around 2750 BC.^[3] In the 1st millennium BC, Phoenicians and Greeks established colonies all over the Mediterranean, including its outlets like the Black Sea. The seas along the eastern and the southern Asian coast were used by Arabs and Chinese for navigation, and the North Sea and the Baltic Sea were known to Europeans in Roman times. Other seas were not used for navigation in the antiquity and were actually discovered.

The White Sea was known to Novgorodians and used for navigation since not later that the 13th century.^[4] Pomors, living at the White Sea coast, also sailed to Svalbard, but the Barents Sea got its name later, due to the 16th century Dutch expedition headed by Willem Barentsz. Other seas in Arctic Russia were explored in connection with the search of the Northern Sea Route. In the first half of the 17th century the Kara Sea was already used on a regular basis for navigation between the city of Arkhangelsk and the mouth of the Ob River and upstream to the city of Mangazeya (Mangazeya Trade Route) and to the mouth of the Yenisei River (Yenisey Trade Route).^[5] In 1648, Semyon Dezhnev led an expedition down the Kolyma River, around the cape now known as Cape Dezhnev, and to the mouth of the Anadyr River.^[6] By the end of the 17th century, the seas along what is now Arctic and Pacific coasts of Russia were already discovered, although the systematic description and reliable mapping of the coast line only started in the 18th century, and the geographical locations of all islands were only established in the first half of the 20th century, when aviation was employed.

List of seas [link]

[edit] Atlantic Ocean

[edit] Mediterranean Sea

Aegean Sea Mirtoon Sea Sea of Crete Thracian Sea Adriatic Sea

Alboran Sea Balearic Sea Catalan Sea Cilician Sea

Gulf of Sidra Ionian Sea Levantine Sea Libyan Sea

Ligurian Sea Sea of Sardinia Sea of Sicily Tyrrhenian Sea

[edit] Baltic Sea

Archipelago Sea Bay of Bothnia Bothnian Sea

Central Baltic Sea Gulf of Bothnia Gulf of Finland

Gulf of Riga Oresund Strait Sea of Åland

Archipelago Sea

Others [link]

Argentine Sea Bay of Biscay Bay of Campeche Bay of Fundy Black Sea[7] Caribbean Sea Celtic Sea

Chesapeake Bay Davis Strait Denmark Strait English Channel Gulf of Guinea Gulf of Maine

Gulf of Mexico Gulf of St. Lawrence Gulf of Venezuela Irish Sea Labrador Sea Marmara Sea[7]

North Sea Norwegian Sea Sargasso Sea Sea of Azov[7] Sea of the Hebrides Wadden Sea

[edit] Arctic Ocean

Amundsen Gulf Baffin Bay Barents Sea Beaufort Sea Chukchi Sea

East Siberian Sea Greenland Sea Hudson Bay James Bay Kara Sea Kara Strait

Laptev Sea Lincoln Sea Prince Gustav Adolf Sea Pechora Sea White Sea

Beaufort Sea

[edit] Southern Ocean

Amundsen Sea Bass Strait Bellingshausen Sea Cooperation Sea Cosmonauts Sea

Davis Sea D'Urville Sea Drake Passage Great Australian Bight Gulf St Vincent

King Haakon VII Sea Lazarev Sea Mawson Sea Riiser-Larsen Sea Ross Sea

Scotia Sea Somov Sea Spencer Gulf Weddell Sea

[edit] Indian Ocean

Andaman Sea Arabian Sea Bay of Bengal

Gulf of Aden Gulf of Oman

Laccadive Sea Mozambique Channel Persian Gulf

Red Sea Timor Sea

[edit] Pacific Ocean

Arafura Sea Banda Sea Bering Sea Bismarck Sea Bohai Sea Bohol Sea (also known as the Mindanao Sea) Camotes Sea Celebes Sea Ceram Sea

Chilean Sea Sea of Chiloé Coral Sea East China Sea Flores Sea Gulf of Alaska Gulf of California (also known as the Sea of Cortéz) Gulf of Carpentaria Gulf of Thailand

Halmahera Sea Java Sea Koro Sea Molucca Sea Philippine Sea Salish Sea Savu Sea Sea of Japan Sea of Okhotsk

Seto Inland Sea Sibuyan Sea Solomon Sea South China Sea Sulu Sea Tasman Sea Visayan Sea Yellow Sea

[edit] Landlocked seas

Some large inland lakes, usually brackish, are called "seas".

Aral Sea Caspian Sea

Dead Sea Sea of Galilee

Great Salt Lake Salton Sea

List of seas by surface area [link]

No.	Name of the Water Body	Surface area (sq.mi)	Surface area (sq.km)
1	Philippine Sea	2,000,000	5,177,762
2	Coral Sea	1,850,000	4,791,000
3	Arabian Sea	1,491,130	3,862,000
4	South China Sea	1,351,936	3,500,000
5	Weddell Sea	1,081,548	2,800,000
6	Caribbean Sea	1,063,000	2,754,000
7	Mediterranean Sea	965,000	2,500,000
8	Tasman Sea	900,000	2,330,000
9	Bering Sea	873,000	2,260,100
10	Bay of Bengal	838,970	2,172,000

Rank	Body of water	Square miles (square kilometres)
1	Pacific Ocean	64,196,000 sq mi (166,270,000 km2)
2	Atlantic Ocean	33,400,000 sq mi (87,000,000 km2)
3	Indian Ocean	28,400,000 sq mi (74,000,000 km2)
4	Southern Ocean	20,327,000 sq mi (52,650,000 km2)
5	Arctic Ocean	5,100,000 sq mi (13,000,000 km2)
6	Arabian Sea	1,491,000 sq mi (3,860,000 km2)
7	South China Sea	1,148,000 sq mi (2,970,000 km2)
8	Caribbean Sea	971,000 sq mi (2,510,000 km2)
9	Mediterranean Sea	969,000 sq mi (2,510,000 km2)
10	Bering Sea	873,000 sq mi (2,260,000 km2)
11	Bay of Bengal	838,612 sq mi (2,172,000 km2)
12	Gulf of Mexico	582,000 sq mi (1,510,000 km2)
13	Sea of Okhotsk	537,000 sq mi (1,390,000 km2)
14	Sea of Japan	391,000 sq mi (1,010,000 km2)
15	Hudson Bay	282,000 sq mi (730,000 km2)
16	East China Sea	257,000 sq mi (670,000 km2)
17	Andaman Sea	218,100 sq mi (565,000 km2)
18	Red Sea	175,000 sq mi (450,000 km2)
19	Black Sea	168,500 sq mi (436,000 km2)
20	North Sea	165,000 sq mi (430,000 km2)
21	Baltic Sea	147,000 sq mi (380,000 km2)
22	Yellow Sea	113,500 sq mi (294,000 km2)
23	Persian Gulf	88,800 sq mi (230,000 km2)
24	Adriatic Sea	60,000 sq mi (160,000 km2)
25	Gulf of California	59,000 sq mi (150,000 km2)

Bodies of water which are missing from this table, and their approximate areas, include:

• Philippine Sea (2,000,000 sq mi)
• Coral Sea (1,849,800 sq mi)
• Sargasso Sea (roughly 1,400,000 sq mi)
• Weddell Sea (1,080,000 sq mi)
• Tasman Sea (900,000 sq mi)
• Gulf of Alaska (592,000 sq mi)
• Barents Sea (542,000 sq mi)
• Greenland Sea (465,000 sq mi)
• Mozambique Channel (roughly 425,000 sq mi)
• Argentine Sea (386,000 sq mi)
• Ross Sea (370,000 sq mi)
• East Siberian Sea (361,000 sq mi)
• Scotia Sea (350,000 sq mi)
• Kara Sea (340,000 sq mi)
• Solomon Sea (280,000 sq mi)
• Laptev Sea (276,000 sq mi)
• Baffin Bay (266,000 sq mi)
• Arafura Sea (250,000 sq mi)
• Timor Sea (235,000 sq mi)
• Chukchi Sea (225,000 sq mi)
• Norwegian Sea (222,000 sq mi)
• Gulf of Aden (205,000 sq mi)
• Beaufort Sea (184,000 sq mi)
• Banda Sea (180,000 sq mi)
• Gulf of Thailand (roughly 146,000 sq mi)
• Caspian Sea (142,800 sq mi)
• Java Sea (124,000 sq mi)
• Gulf of Carpentaria (120,000 sq mi)
• Celebes Sea (110,000 sq mi)
• Sulu Sea (100,000 sq mi)
• Flores Sea (93,000 sq mi)
• Bay of Biscay (86,000 sq mi)
• Aegean Sea (83,000 sq mi)
• Molucca Sea (77,000 sq mi)
• Gulf of Saint Lawrence (60,000 sq mi)
• This list is incomplete.

Nomenclature [link]

• The Sea of Galilee is a small freshwater lake with a natural outlet, which is called Lake Tiberias or Lake Kinneret on modern Israeli maps, but its original name remains in use.
• The Sea of Cortés is more commonly known as the Gulf of California.
• The Dead Sea is actually a lake, as is the Caspian Sea and the mainly dried up Aral Sea.

See also [link]

• Oceanography
• European Atlas of the Seas
• Inlet
• International Maritime Organization
• List of places on land with elevations below sea level
• Pole of inaccessibility: the locations farthest from any coastline
• Marine debris
• Sea level
• Sea level rise
• Sea salt
• Seven Seas
• Borders of the oceans

References [link]

1. ^ "Sea - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary". Merriam-webster.com. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sea. Retrieved 2012-03-13. 
2. ^ "Sea ice (ice formation)". Britannica Online Encyclopedia. 2012 [last update]. https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/939404/sea-ice. Retrieved 5 March 2012. 
3. ^ "The Ancient World - Egypt". marinersmuseum.org. Mariners' Museum. 2012 [last update]. https://www.marinersmuseum.org/education/ancient-world-egypt. Retrieved 5 March 2012. 
4. ^ "Зацепились за Моржовец" (in Russian). Русское географическое общество. 2012 [last update]. https://www.rgo.ru/2010/08/zacepilis-za-morzhovec/. Retrieved 5 March 2012. 
5. ^ Урванцев, Н. Н. (1969). "История открытия и освоения медно-никелевых руд Сибирского Севера" (in Russian). Moscow: Недра. https://library.ikz.ru/hronologiya-osvoeniya-sibiri/Mangazeya. Retrieved 7 March 2012. 
6. ^ Howgego, Ray (2001 [last update]). "Discoverers Web: Dezhnev". win.tue.nl. https://www.win.tue.nl/~engels/discovery/dezhnev.html. Retrieved 7 March 2012. 
7. ^ ^{a b c} often treated as part of Mediterranean Sea

External links [link]

Look up sea in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Seas

• Oceans at the Open Directory Project
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

v t e Earth's oceans and seas Arctic Ocean Amundsen Gulf Barents Sea Beaufort Sea Bering Strait Chukchi Sea East Siberian Sea Fram Strait Greenland Sea Gulf of Boothia Kara Sea Kara Strait Laptev Sea Lincoln Sea Prince Gustav Adolf Sea Pechora Sea Wandel Sea White Sea Atlantic Ocean Adriatic Sea Aegean Sea Alboran Sea Archipelago Sea Argentine Sea Baffin Bay Balearic Sea Baltic Sea Bay of Biscay Bay of Bothnia Bay of Campeche Bay of Fundy Black Sea Bothnian Sea Caribbean Sea Celtic Sea Davis Strait Denmark Strait English Channel Foxe Basin Greenland Sea Gulf of Bothnia Gulf of Finland Gulf of Lion Gulf of Guinea Gulf of Maine Gulf of Mexico Gulf of St. Lawrence Gulf of Venezuela Hudson Bay James Bay Ionian Sea Irish Sea Irminger Sea Labrador Sea Levantine Sea Libyan Sea Ligurian Sea Marmara Sea Mediterranean Sea Myrtoan Sea North Sea Norwegian Sea Saint Lawrence Seaway Sargasso Sea Sea of Åland Sea of Azov Sea of Crete Sea of the Hebrides Thracian Sea Tyrrhenian Sea Indian Ocean Andaman Sea Arabian Sea Bay of Bengal Gulf of Aden Gulf of Aqaba Gulf of Khambhat Gulf of Kutch Gulf of Oman Gulf of Suez Laccadive Sea Mozambique Channel Persian Gulf Red Sea Strait of Malacca Timor Sea Pacific Ocean Arafura Sea Bali Sea Banda Sea Bering Sea Bismarck Sea Bohai Sea Bohol Sea Camotes Sea Celebes Sea Ceram Sea Chilean Sea Coral Sea East China Sea Flores Sea Gulf of Alaska Gulf of California Gulf of Carpentaria Gulf of Fonseca Gulf of Thailand Gulf of Tonkin Halmahera Sea Java Sea Koro Sea Makassar Strait Molucca Sea Moro Gulf Philippine Sea Salish Sea Savu Sea Sea of Japan Sea of Okhotsk Seto Inland Sea Sibuyan Sea Solomon Sea South China Sea Sulu Sea Tasman Sea Visayan Sea Yellow Sea Southern Ocean Amundsen Sea Bellingshausen Sea Cooperation Sea Cosmonauts Sea Davis Sea D'Urville Sea King Haakon VII Sea Lazarev Sea Riiser-Larsen Sea Mawson Sea Ross Sea Scotia Sea Somov Sea Weddell Sea Landlocked seas Aral Sea Caspian Sea Dead Sea Salton Sea

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