The Sea of Japan (see below for other names) is the marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, the Korean Peninsula, and the mainland of the Russian Far East. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it has almost no tides due to its nearly complete enclosure from the Pacific Ocean. This isolation also affects faunal diversity and salinity, both of which are lower than in the open ocean. The sea has no large islands, bays or capes. Its water balance is mostly determined by the inflow and outflow through the straits connecting it to the neighboring seas and the Pacific Ocean. Few rivers discharge into the sea and their total contribution to the water exchange is within 1%.
Relief of the Sea of Japan and nearby areas
Sunrise over the Sea of Japan filmed in South Korea
The Sea of Japan seen from the south of Slavyanka. From a distance, the two islands of Antipenko (left) and Sibiryakov (right).
A bay at Sibiryakov Island, 50 km (31 mi) south from Vladivostok
The Japanese archipelago is an archipelago of 14,125 islands that form the country of Japan. It extends over 3,000 km (1,900 mi) from the Sea of Okhotsk in the northeast to the East China and Philippine seas in the southwest along the Pacific coast of the Eurasian continent, and consists of three island arcs from north to south: the Northeastern Japan Arc, the Southwestern Japan Arc, and the Ryukyu Island Arc. The Daitō Islands, the Izu–Bonin–Mariana Arc, the Kuril Islands, and the Nanpō Islands neighbor the archipelago.
A satellite image of the main archipelago (Ryukyu Islands not pictured)