The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by South China, in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan and northwestern Philippines, and in the south by the Indonesian islands of Borneo, eastern Sumatra and the Bangka Belitung Islands, encompassing an area of around 3,500,000 km2 (1,400,000 sq mi). It communicates with the East China Sea via the Taiwan Strait, the Philippine Sea via the Luzon Strait, the Sulu Sea via the straits around Palawan, and the Java Sea via the Karimata and Bangka Straits. The Gulf of Thailand and the Gulf of Tonkin are part of the South China Sea.
Satellite image of South China Sea
The northeastern portion of South China Sea
Sunset on the South China Sea off Mũi Né village on the south-east coast of Vietnam
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, and is bounded by the continents of Asia and Australia in the west and the Americas in the east.
The Pacific Ocean, photograph taken from space by the GOES-18 spacecraft in September 2023
Model of a Fijian drua, an example of an Austronesian vessel with a double-canoe (catamaran) hull and a crab claw sail
The bathyscaphe Trieste before her record dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, 23 January 1960
Abel Aubert du Petit-Thouars taking over Tahiti on 9 September 1842