Definitions for pacific ocean
This page provides all possible meanings and translations of the word pacific ocean
Random House Webster's College Dictionary
an ocean bordered by the American continents, Asia, and Australia: largest ocean in the world; divided by the equator into the North Pacific and the South Pacific. 70,000,000 sq. mi. (181,300,000 sq. km); greatest known depth, 35,433 ft. (10,800 m).
Category: Geography (places)
Pacific, Pacific Ocean(noun)
the largest ocean in the world
The world's largest body of water, to the east of Asia and Australasia and to the west of the Americas.
Origin: From pacific, from pacifique ‘peaceful’ + ocean.
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east. At 165.25 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World Ocean – and, in turn, the hydrosphere – covers about 46% of the Earth's water surface and about one-third of its total surface area, making it larger than all of the Earth's land area combined. The equator subdivides it into the North Pacific Ocean and South Pacific Ocean, with two exceptions: the Galápagos and Gilbert Islands, while straddling the equator, are deemed wholly within the South Pacific. The Mariana Trench in the western North Pacific is the deepest point in the world, reaching a depth of 10,911 metres. The eastern Pacific Ocean was first sighted by Europeans in the early 16th century when Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama in 1513 and discovered the great "southern sea" which he named Mar del Sur. The ocean's current name was coined by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the Spanish expedition of the world in 1521, as he encountered favourable winds on reaching the ocean. He therefore called it Mar Pacifico in Portuguese, meaning "peaceful sea".
The Nuttall Encyclopedia
the largest sheet of water on the globe, occupies a third of its whole surface, as much as all the land put together. It is a wide oval in shape, lying between Australia and Asia on the W., and North and South America on the E. Except from Asia it receives no large rivers. On its American shores the Gulf of California is the only considerable indentation; the Okhotsk, Japanese, Yellow, and Chinese Seas, on the Asiatic coast, are rather wide bays shut in by islands than inland seas. Its innumerable islands are the chief feature of the Pacific Ocean. The continental islands include the Aleutian, Kurile, Japan, and Philippine Islands, and the archipelago between the Malay Peninsula and Australia; the Oceanic Islands include countless groups, volcanic and coral, chiefly in the southern hemisphere, between the Sandwich Islands and New Zealand. Commerce on the Pacific Ocean is only beginning, but will increase vastly with the extension of the United States westward, the colonisation of Australia, and the opening of Chinese and Japanese ports. San Francisco and Valparaiso on the E., Hong-Kong and Sydney on the W., are just now the chief centres of trade.
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"pacific ocean." Definitions.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2014. Web. 24 Oct. 2014. <http://www.definitions.net/definition/pacific ocean>.