Pacific Ocean - Sea Of JapanThe Sea of Japan (East Sea) is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it has almost no tides due to its nearly complete enclosure. The Sea of Japan is bordered by the Russian mainland and Sakhalin island to the north, North Korea and South Korea to the west, and the Japanese islands of Hokkaidō, Honshū, and Kyūshū to the east.
It is connected to other seas by five shallow straits. These are the Strait of Tartary between the Asian mainland and Sakhalin, the La Perouse Strait between the islands of Sakhalin and Hokkaidō, the Tsugaru Strait between the islands of Hokkaidō and Honshū, the Kanmon Straits between the islands of Honshū and Kyūshū and the Korea Strait between the Korean Peninsula and the island of Kyūshū. The Korea Strait is composed of the Western Channel and the Tsushima Strait, on either side of Tsushima Island. The deepest depth of the Sea Of Japan is 3,742 metres below sea level. Its mean depth is 1,752 metres a dn it has a surface area of about 978,000 km². The sea has three major basins which are named the 'Yamato Basin' in the southeast, the 'Japan Basin' in the north and the 'Tsushima Basin' (Ulleung Basin) in the southwest. The 'Japan Basin' has the deepest areas of the sea, while the Tsushima Basin has the shallowest. On the eastern shores, the continental shelves of the sea are wide, but on the western shores, particularly along the Korean coast, they are narrow, averaging about 30 kilometres wide. The Tsushima Warm Current, a branch of Kuroshio Current, flows northward through the Korea Strait along the Japanese shore and the Liman Cold Current flows southward through the Strait of Tartary along the Russian shore. The Sea of Japan was once a landlocked sea when the land bridge of East Asia existed. |
