Portal:Oceans


Selected panorama

– Hover over image and scroll to middle for controls to see more selected panorama images –

Introduction

The ocean is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of Earth. The ocean is conventionally divided into large bodies of water, which are also referred to as oceans (the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Antarctic/Southern, and Arctic Ocean), and are themselves mostly divided into seas, gulfs and subsequent bodies of water. The ocean contains 97% of Earth's water and is the primary component of Earth's hydrosphere, acting as a huge reservoir of heat for Earth's energy budget, as well as for its carbon cycle and water cycle, forming the basis for climate and weather patterns worldwide. The ocean is essential to life on Earth, harbouring most of Earth's animals and protist life, originating photosynthesis and therefore Earth's atmospheric oxygen, still supplying half of it. (Full article...)

A sea is a large body of salt water. There are particular seas and the sea. The sea commonly refers to the ocean, the interconnected body of seawaters that spans most of Earth. Particular seas are either marginal seas, second-order sections of the oceanic sea (e.g. the Mediterranean Sea), or certain large, nearly landlocked bodies of water. (Full article...)

Oceanography (from Ancient Greek ὠκεανός (ōkeanós) 'ocean' and γραφή (graphḗ) 'writing'), also known as oceanology, sea science, ocean science, and marine science, is the scientific study of the ocean, including its physics, chemistry, biology, and geology. (Full article...)

Selected article -

Marine art or maritime art is a form of figurative art (that is, painting, drawing, printmaking and sculpture) that portrays or draws its main inspiration from the sea. Maritime painting is a genre that depicts ships and the sea—a genre particularly strong from the 17th to 19th centuries. In practice the term often covers art showing shipping on rivers and estuaries, beach scenes and all art showing boats, without any rigid distinction – for practical reasons subjects that can be drawn or painted from dry land in fact feature strongly in the genre. Strictly speaking "maritime art" should always include some element of human seafaring, whereas "marine art" would also include pure seascapes with no human element, though this distinction may not be observed in practice. Ships and boats have been included in art from almost the earliest times, but marine art only began to become a distinct genre, with specialized artists, towards the end of the Middle Ages, mostly in the form of the "ship portrait" a type of work that is still popular and concentrates on depicting a single vessel. As landscape art emerged during the Renaissance, what might be called the marine landscape became a more important element in works, but pure seascapes were rare until later. (Full article...)

List of selected articles

Interesting facts -

Selected list articles and Marine habitat topics

Tasks


Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

General images -

The following are images from various ocean-related articles on Wikipedia.

In the news

9 July 2025 – Red Sea crisis
Houthi attacks on commercial vessels
Attacks on the Eternity C
The Eternity C, a Liberian-flagged ship, sinks in the Red Sea after being attacked by the Houthis on Monday. At least four people are killed, seven others are rescued and fourteen are reported missing. A rescue operation is underway. (The Guardian) (NOS)
7 July 2025 – Middle Eastern crisis
Red Sea crisis
At least four people are killed, two people are injured and two other people are missing after the Eternity C, a Liberian flagged ship, is attacked in the Red Sea near Hodeida, Yemen, by multiple Houthi boats and drones. The ship later sinks. (NOS) (NOS)

WikiProjects

  • WikiProject Oceans
  • WikiProject Limnology and Oceanography
  • WikiProject Marine life
  • WikiProject Cetaceans
  • WikiProject Fishes
  • WikiProject Sharks

Related WikiProjects
  • WikiProject Arthropods
  • WikiProject Fisheries and Fishing
  • WikiProject Lakes
  • WikiProject Rivers

Topics


More topics

Categories

Select [►] to view subcategories Oceans
Oceans
Categories by ocean
Categories by sea or ocean
Landforms by sea or ocean
Oceans-related lists
Seas
Oceans surrounding Antarctica
Arctic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
Submarine cables
Coasts
Ocean currents
Marine energy
Oceans and seas in fiction
Historical oceans
Indian Ocean
Indo-Atlantic
Indo-Pacific
Law of the sea
Ocean maps
Marine conservation
Oceanaria
Pacific Ocean
Submarine pipelines
Ocean pollution
Southern Ocean
Works set on oceans
World Ocean


Seas
Seas
Categories by sea
Categories by sea or ocean
Seas by country
Seas by continent
Seas of the Arctic Ocean
Seas of the Atlantic Ocean
Sea in culture
Sea and river deities
Oceans and seas in fiction
Seas of Greenland
Seas of the Indian Ocean
Lists of seas
Marginal seas
Marine energy
Maritime transport
Seas of the Pacific Ocean
Seas of the Southern Ocean


Oceanography
Oceanography
Oceanographers
Marine geophysicists
Oceans
Seas
Oceanography awards
Biological oceanography
Chemical oceanography
Oceanographic expeditions
Ocean exploration
Fracture zones
Oceanographic instrumentation
Oceanography journals
Marine biology
Marine geology
Marine meteorology
Maritime culture
Oceanographic Time-Series
Oceanographical terminology
Oceanography of Canada
Oceanographic organizations
Paleoceanography
Physical oceanography
Research vessels
Underwater diving companies
Underwater diving sites
Underwater explorers
United States Exploring Expedition
Oceanography stubs

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

Admiralty law

Need assistance?

Do you have a question about oceans, seas or oceanography that you can't find the answer to? Consider asking it at the Wikipedia reference desk.

External media


Discover Wikipedia using portals