Key Facts about Sea of Japan

About Sea of Japan

• It is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean.
• It is located in Eastern Asia and is bounded by Japan and Sakhalin Island to the east and by Russia and Korea on the Asian mainland to the west.
• It covers 978,000 square km. The average depth is 1,667 meters. The depth of the deepest point is 3,742 meters.
  • Dohoku Seamount, an underwater volcano, is its deepest point.
• The sea itself lies in a deep basin, separated from the East China Sea to the south by the Tsushima and Korea straits and from the Sea of Okhotsk to the north by the La Perouse (or Sōya) and Tatar straits. 
• To the east, it is also connected to the Inland Sea of Japan by the Kanmon Strait, and to the Pacific by the Tsugaru Strait.
• It influences the climate of Japan because of its relatively warm waters.
• It serves as the meeting point of the cold currents from the north and the warm currents from the south.
• There are no large islands in the Sea of Japan. Except for the South Korean Island of Ulleungdo, all the other small islands are situated near the eastern coast of the sea.

Major Ports:

Russia: Vladivostok, Sovetskaya Gavan, Nakhodka, Alexandrovsk-Sakhalinsky, and Kholmsk.

North Korea: Hamhung, Chongjin, and Wonsan.

Japan: Niigata, Tsuruta, and Maizuru.

Q1: What is a Strait?

A strait is a narrow waterway between two pieces of land that connects two large bodies of water. Well-known straits include the Bering Strait, which links the Arctic Ocean with the Bering Sea and separates the continents of Asia and North America at their closest point. The Strait of Gibraltar, located between Spain and Africa, connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Atlantic Ocean. The Strait of Magellan lies between the southern tip of South America and the islands of Tierra del Fuego and links the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Source: North Korea Fires Ballistic Missile Into Sea Of Japan, Claims South Korea