SEAS OF THE WORLD A sea is commonly defined to be an extended body of saline

water associated with one of the worlds five oceans

(Atlantic, Indian, Pacific, Arctic, and Southern oceans). Some

seas can appear to be distant from the ocean to which they

are associated, like the Black Sea which is connected to the

Atlantic Ocean, two thousand miles away, via

the Mediterranean Sea and several very narrow straits.

Other bodies of inland water carry the name sea but are not

directly associated with one of the world's oceans, such as

the Caspian Sea and the Aral Sea. In most cases, seas are

areas of an ocean that are close to and bounded to a greater

or lesser degree by land. The degree to which seas are

enclosed by land affects the degree to which they share

water flows with the larger oceans or seas which they

connect to. There are two types of sea defined by their

degree of enclosure and connection to larger bodies of

water:

Marginal seas are partially enclosed by land (e.g., a bay,

a peninsula, islands). Because of their openness to the larger

ocean or sea, marginal seas share the currents formed by

ocean winds and these currents dominate water circulation.

Marginal seas are far more common than Mediterranean

seas. Examples of marginal seas include (with dominating

ocean or larger sea in parentheses): Barents

Sea (Arctic); English Channel (Atlantic); Aegean

Sea (Mediterranean); Red Sea (Indian); Coral Sea(Pacific);

and the Scotia Sea (Southern)

Mediterranean seas are mostly enclosed by land and

thereby have limited ability to share the currents of an

adjoining ocean or larger sea. Water circulation in

Mediterranean seas is dominated by salinity and

and temperature differences rather than winds. Examples of

marginal seas include (with limited connectivity ocean or

larger sea in parentheses): Mediterranean Sea (Atlantic);

Arctic Mediterranean Sea (including the three "Nordic Seas" -

Greenland Sea, Iceland Sea, and Norwegian Sea;  and

the Arctic Ocean).

Regional seas are bodies of water smaller than the main

sections of the world ocean that is bound by geographic

and/or hydrographic regions. Examples include the Adriatic

Sea, Greenland Sea, Solomon Sea and Yellow Sea. Regional

seas can be classified further as marginal Seas or

Mediterranean seas. 

 Epeiric seas are associated with the marine transgressions

of the geologic past, which are either attributed global

ecstatic sea level changes, local tectonic deformation, and

are sometimes semi-cyclic. These seas can be warm or cold;

several were extant toward the winding down of the most

recent Ice Age, when sea level rose more rapidly than some

areas could isostatically adjust. Present day examples are the

Java Sea in Indonesia and the Persian Gulf

Since there no strict scientific definition of the term sea, it is

not surprising that there is no single defined list of the seas

of the world. Rather, there are bodies of water that are

widely referred by a given term and are thereby listed here.

Some might, with good reason, exclude some of the areas on

this list and include others. Thus, the following list is not

presented as exhaustive.

Seas of the Atlantic Ocean

Baffin Bay

Baltic Sea

Bothnian Sea

Gulf of Finland

Gulf of Riga

Kattegat

Bay of Biscay

Bay of Fundy

Black Sea

Bristol Channel

Caribbean Sea

Celtic Sea

English Channel

Gulf of Guinea

Gulf of Mexico

Gulf of St. Lawrence

Mediterranean Sea

Adriatic Sea

Aegean Sea

Myrtoan Sea

Sea of Crete

Thracian Sea

Alboran Sea

Balearic (Iberian) Sea

Ionian Sea

Levantine Sea

Ligurian Sea

Tyrrhenian Sea

North Sea

Rio de Plata

Sargasso Sea

Sea of Azov

Gulf of Venezuela

Irish Sea

Kattegat

Labrador Sea

Sea of the Hebrides

Sea of Marmara

Wadden Sea

Seas between the Indian and Pacific Oceans

Arafura Sea 

Bali Sea

Banda Sea

Camotes Sea

Celebes Sea

Ceram Sea

Flores Sea

Gulf of Boni

Gulf of Carpentaria

Gulf of Thailand

Gulf of Tomini

Halmahera Sea

Java Sea

Makassar Strait

Mindanao Sea

Molucca Sea

Savu Sea

Sibuyan Sea

Sulu Sea

Timor Sea

Visayan Sea

Seas of the Indian Ocean

Arabian Sea

Andaman (Burma) Sea

Bay of Bengal

Gulf of Aden

Gulf of Aqaba

Gulf of Oman

Gulf of Suez

 

Laccadive Sea

Malacca Strait

Mozambique Channel

Persian Gulf

Red Sea

Singapore Strait

 

Seas of the Pacific Ocean

Bass Strait

Bohai Sea

Bering Sea

Bismark Sea

Coral Sea

East China Sea

Great Australian Bight

Gulf of Alaska

Gulf of California

Koro Sea

Philippine Sea

Sea of Japan

Sea of Okhotsk

South China Sea

Seto Inland Sea

Solomon Sea

Tasman Sea

Yatsushiro Sea

Yellow Sea

Arctic Seas

Barents Sea

Beaufort Sea

Bering Sea

Chuckchi Sea

Davis Strait

East Siberian Sea

Greenland Sea

Hudson Bay

Hudson Strait

Kara Sea

Labrador Sea

Laptev (Nordenskjold) Sea

Lincoln Sea

Northwest Passages

Norwegian Sea

Pechora Sea

Wandel or McKinley Sea

White Sea

Seas of the Southern Ocean

Amundsen Sea

Bellingshausen Sea

Davis Sea

Ross Sea

Scotia Sea

Weddell Sea

Interior Seas

Aral Sea Dead Sea

Caspian Sea Sea of Galilee