The Pacific Ocean, the largest and deepest of the world’s four oceans, covers more than a third of the Earth’s surface and contains more than half of its free water. The floor of the Pacific Ocean, which has an average depth of around 14,000 feet (4,300 m), is largely a deep-sea plain. The name Pacific, which means peaceful, was given to it by the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan in 1520. The Pacific is the oldest of the existing ocean basins, its oldest rocks having been dated at 200 million years.
The Pacific Ocean is bounded on the east by the North and South American continents; on the north by the Bering Strait; on the west by Asia, the Malay Archipelago, and Australia; and on the south by Antarctica.
360 million sq km of Earth’s surface is covered by water
FACT FILE
The Pacific Ocean contains more than 30,000 islands; their total land area, however, amounts to only one-quarter of one percent of the ocean’s surface area.
