# Pacific Ocean

By [Glory](https://paragraph.com/@heardless) · 2023-02-01

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The **Pacific Ocean** is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the [Arctic Ocean](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Ocean) in the north to the [Southern Ocean](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Ocean) (or, depending on definition, to [Antarctica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica)) in the south, and is bounded by the continents of [Asia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia) and [Oceania](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceania) in the west and the [Americas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas) in the east.

At 165,250,000 square kilometers (63,800,000 square miles) in area (as defined with a southern Antarctic border), this largest division of the [World Ocean](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Ocean) and the [hydrosphere](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrosphere) covers about 46 percent of Earth's water surface and about 32 percent of its total surface area, larger than Earth's entire land area combined 148,000,000 km2 (57,000,000 sq mi).[\[1\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Ocean#cite_note-ebc-1) The centers of both the [Water Hemisphere](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_and_water_hemispheres) and the [Western Hemisphere](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere), as well as the [oceanic pole of inaccessibility](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pole_of_inaccessibility#Oceanic_pole_of_inaccessibility) are in the Pacific Ocean. Ocean circulation (caused by the [Coriolis effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolis_effect)) subdivides it[\[2\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Ocean#cite_note-2) into two largely independent volumes of water, which meet at the [equator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equator): the **North Pacific Ocean** and **South Pacific Ocean**. The [Galápagos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gal%C3%A1pagos_Islands) and [Gilbert Islands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Islands), while straddling the [equator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equator), are deemed wholly within the South Pacific.[\[3\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Ocean#cite_note-IHO1953-3)

The Pacific Ocean's mean depth is 4,000 meters (13,000 feet).[\[4\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Ocean#cite_note-4) [Challenger Deep](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenger_Deep) in the [Mariana Trench](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_Trench), located in the western north Pacific, is the deepest known point in the world, reaching a depth of 10,928 meters (35,853 feet).[\[5\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Ocean#cite_note-5) The Pacific also contains the deepest point in the [Southern Hemisphere](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Hemisphere), the [Horizon Deep](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon_Deep) in the [Tonga Trench](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonga_Trench), at 10,823 meters (35,509 feet).[\[6\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Ocean#cite_note-6) The third deepest point on Earth, the [Sirena Deep](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirena_Deep), is also located in the Mariana Trench.

The western Pacific has many major [marginal seas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_sea), including but not limited to the [South China Sea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_China_Sea), the [East China Sea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_China_Sea), the [Sea of Japan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_of_Japan), the [Sea of Okhotsk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_of_Okhotsk), the [Philippine Sea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Sea), the [Coral Sea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_Sea), [Java Sea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Sea) and the [Tasman Sea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasman_Sea).

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*Originally published on [Glory](https://paragraph.com/@heardless/pacific-ocean)*