Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean
Area
• Total	165,250,000 km²

The Pacific Ocean is the largest continuous body of water on Earth, covering more than a third of the world's surface. As the deepest and most island-rich of all the oceans, its waters reach the shores of Asia, Oceania, North America, South America, and Antarctica. The Pacific Ocean accounts for 49.8% of the world’s total ocean area and contains approximately 10,000 islands, which represent 45% of the global island area.

Imperialism has taken root within this ocean. The United States, Australia, and Japan, alongside other imperial core states, use this body of water to militarily and economically attempt to cripple China, while asserting neocolonial control through policing programs and pressuring their neocolonies into compliance.

Geography

The Pacific Ocean’s maximum north-south length is 15,800 kilometers, while its greatest east-west width reaches 19,500 kilometers. To the southwest lies the Indian Ocean, to the southeast the Atlantic Ocean, and to the north the Arctic Ocean. The Pacific Ocean has an average depth of approximately 4,028 meters.

Islands within the Pacific include the Samoan Islands, the Hawaiian Islands, the Ryukyu Islands, the Kuril Islands, the Aleutian Islands, the North and South Islands of New Zealand, New Guinea, Borneo, and the Sakhalin Islands.

Economy

The Pacific Ocean is rich in marine life, abundant with herring, cod, anchovies, salmon, tuna, and crab. Half of the world's fish are caught within the Pacific, specifically within the fishing hotspots of Japan, Peru, Korea, and China, alongside the Northwestern United States and Canada. Deep-sea minerals are also plentiful, with an abundance of manganese, nickel, cobalt, and copper, as well as natural gas and oil.

Major international ports bordering the Pacific include Los Angeles, San Francisco, Vancouver, Sydney, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Kaohsiung, Hong Kong, Singapore, Manila, Busan, Yokohama, Kobe, Vladivostok, Dalian, and Kitakyushu, among many others. Alongside these major ports, key shipping routes include those from Japan to Australia, South America to Europe, East Asia to North America via the Panama Canal and China to the Persian Gulf via the Strait of Malacca.

The Pacific Ocean facilitates the movement of 80% of all global products and goods. The Trans-Pacific Route connects East Asia (China, Japan, Korea) to North American markets, and the Strait of Malacca serves as the bridge between the Pacific and the Indian Ocean, with the Panama Canal still remaining influential for trade between the US and Asia. Ninety-eight percent of all international internet traffic passes through the Pacific Ocean via undersea fiber-optic cables. These cables are chosen as they are cheaper per bit compared to satellites and can handle enormous amounts of data relative to them.