# How many oceans are there on earth? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 3, 2013, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-oceans-are-there-on-earth/645914 "2013-01-03T03:01:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![edwards\_beard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7bcc69/32.png) [@edwards\_beard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/edwards_beard)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-oceans-are-there-on-earth/645914/1 "2013-01-03T03:01:28Z")
This sounds like a really dumb question…but when I was in school, we learned the four oceans Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Arctic During a conversation today someone mentioned there are five oceans. The southern ocean. I looked it up on wiki and other sites and they all mention this fifth ocean…but is it really an ocean? Dopers set me straight here! [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern\_ocean](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_ocean) > [@](#): > > Geographers disagree on the Southern Ocean’s northern boundary or even its existence, with many considering the waters part of the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans instead. Others[who?] regard the Antarctic Convergence, an ocean zone which fluctuates seasonally, as separating the Southern Ocean from other oceans, rather than the 60th parallel.[3] Australian authorities regard the Southern Ocean as lying immediately south of Australia[citation needed]. > > The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) has not yet ratified its 2000 definition of the ocean as being south of 60°S. Its latest published definition of oceans dates from 1953; this does not include the Southern Ocean. However, the more recent definition is used by the IHO and others[citation needed]. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-oceans-are-there-on-earth/645914/2 "2013-01-03T03:08:40Z")
I knew that this kind of thing was going to happen when we let them get away with Pluto. Now they’re going to want to change everything. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-oceans-are-there-on-earth/645914/3 "2013-01-03T03:33:18Z")
Well, really, there’s only one. ---
**Author:** ![solosam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@solosam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solosam)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-oceans-are-there-on-earth/645914/4 "2013-01-03T03:38:29Z")
Last I heard, some people did want a “Southern” ocean because the North Pole got an ocean. The problem with this is that the North Pole is actually an ocean (no land) whereas the antarctic has a rather sizeable continent… Therefore, the southernmost ocean is kind of dubious. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-oceans-are-there-on-earth/645914/5 "2013-01-03T05:17:03Z")
At the surface, just one. Call it “the ocean.” ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-oceans-are-there-on-earth/645914/6 "2013-01-03T05:43:10Z")
Like continents, oceans have a fuzzy definition. If you’re going to have more than one then a Southern Ocean makes sense. It’s the band of water surrounding Antarctica that has it’s own unique characteristics. It takes a big chunk out of the Indian Ocean while barely changing the image of the Atlantic and Pacific. The Arctic Ocean doesn’t mind though, it’s unchanged in area, and greatly improved in navigability lately. ---
**Author:** ![K364](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k364/32/5_2.png) [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-oceans-are-there-on-earth/645914/7 "2013-01-03T06:27:50Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I knew that this kind of thing was going to happen when we let them get away with Pluto. Now they’re going to want to change everything. Yep - Europe is now classified as a Dwarf Continent. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-oceans-are-there-on-earth/645914/8 "2013-01-03T06:35:03Z")
> [@K364](#): > > Yep - Europe is now classified as a Dwarf Continent. Europe really isn’t a continent at all. Nor is Asia. Eurasia is a continent. Unless you can split it off with a canal, it’s not a continent. So, North America, South America, Africa, and Eurasia. Australia is just a large island. 🙂 Okay, okay, you can have Australia. It’s got it’s own tectonic plate, and the next largest landmasses don’t. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-oceans-are-there-on-earth/645914/9 "2013-01-03T06:59:27Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > Okay, okay, you can have Australia. It’s got it’s own tectonic plate, and the next largest landmasses don’t But you can split Arabia of with a canal, and it has its own tectonic plate. Doesn’t that mean that Arabia is a continent? And if we are going by plates, then India is a continent, while Siberia is part of North America. There’s no workable rule for what defines a continent. ---
**Author:** ![YourAdHere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/65b543/32.png) [@YourAdHere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YourAdHere)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-oceans-are-there-on-earth/645914/10 "2013-01-03T07:09:36Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > Europe really isn’t a continent at all. Nor is Asia. Eurasia is a continent. Unless you can split it off with a canal, it’s not a continent. So, North America, South America, Africa, and Eurasia. Australia is just a large island. > > 🙂 > > Okay, okay, you can have Australia. It’s got it’s own tectonic plate, and the next largest landmasses don’t. Not to nit-pick, but what about Antarctica? 🙂 seriously though, does it have tectonic plates / do you count it in your definition? It has mountain ranges so I would think it must have plates. Plus I know it broke off of something else and moves around. But i guess that doesnt mean anything bc apparently Cuba has moved around too and that’s not a continent (had a professor of Caribbean history start the course by displaying a map showing that Cuba had started in the Pacific and moved East before the gap between the Americas closed ) I know I could look this up, but this is regarding the new definitions. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-oceans-are-there-on-earth/645914/11 "2013-01-03T07:25:44Z")
> [@YourAdHere](#): > > Not to nit-pick, but what about Antarctica? 🙂 What about Antarctica is that I’m attempting (and largely failing) to become a rum connoisseur tonight. 🙂 **Blake** , if it’s viable to build a canal from the Persian Gulf to the Med that’s news to me, although googling about for topo maps of northern Syria does look interesting. In any event, I was being flippant. So in that vein, if someone builds a canal from the upper Euphrates to the Med, I’ll lobby for Arabia to be its own continent, while telling those lobbying for separating Europe and Asia to go pound sand. India is right out, unless you’re going to dig a big ditch through the Himalayan plateau. Fair enough? ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-oceans-are-there-on-earth/645914/12 "2013-01-03T07:45:11Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > no workable rule for what defines a continent. Or an island for that matter. We have only one ocean; the low portion of the earth’s surface that’s mainly basaltic, distinct from those granite blobs floating on top of it. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-oceans-are-there-on-earth/645914/13 "2013-01-03T08:49:42Z")
> [@the\_diego](#): > > Or an island for that matter. We have only one ocean; the low portion of the earth’s surface that’s mainly basaltic, distinct from those granite blobs floating on top of it. I could be wrong, but I think an island is a landmass surrounded by an ocean of _water_. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-oceans-are-there-on-earth/645914/14 "2013-01-03T08:57:09Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > I could be wrong, but I think an island is a landmass surrounded by an ocean of _water_. I could also be wrong, but I think his point was that the continents also fit that definition. ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-oceans-are-there-on-earth/645914/15 "2013-01-03T10:28:10Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > And if we are going by plates, then India is a continent … It’s a subcontinent. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-oceans-are-there-on-earth/645914/16 "2013-01-03T10:37:47Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > I could be wrong, but I think an island is a landmass surrounded by an ocean of _water_. Then Eurasia, Africa, the entire Americas (before the canal) and Australia are islands. They might be bounded by several artificially named oceans but so is Greenland, which is smaller than any of the aformentioned but is held to be the biggest. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-oceans-are-there-on-earth/645914/17 "2013-01-03T10:42:47Z")
While studying geology, we had almost one semester studying nothing but semantics for earth scientists. There are lots of physical features taken for granted but not all are precisely defined. Take the case of streams. That’s the generic term and everything else (rivers, creeks, brooks, rivulets, etc.) are basically interchangeable. And last time I checked, there is still no universally agreed method for measuring a river’s length. The Guinness used to mention the Amazon and Nile as valid claimants to the title ‘longest river.’ ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-oceans-are-there-on-earth/645914/18 "2013-01-03T11:56:17Z")
Do the various oceans differ significantly in average temperature, salinity, and other standards of measurement? And is there a serious defense of Europe being a discrete continent (apart from Eurocentricity)? ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-oceans-are-there-on-earth/645914/19 "2013-01-03T12:09:23Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > Europe really isn’t a continent at all. Nor is Asia. Eurasia is a continent. Unless you can split it off with a canal, it’s not a continent.[/size] So how many continents is [Europe](http://www.inlandnavigation.eu/uploads/Maps/map_waterways_europe.jpg), exactly? I lost count somewhere in Holland. 😉 Also, where do the seven seas fit into all this? ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-oceans-are-there-on-earth/645914/20 "2013-01-03T12:13:30Z")
From **The Hunting of the Snark** : [QUOTE=Lewis Carroll] He had bought a large map representing the sea,  Without the least vestige of land: And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be  A map they could all understand. “What’s the good of Mercator’s North Poles and Equators,  Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?” So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply  “They are merely conventional signs! “Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!  But we’ve got our brave Captain to thank: (So the crew would protest) “that he’s bought us the best —  A perfect and absolute blank!” [/QUOTE] I just enjoy taking any opportunity to quote Lewis Carroll. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-oceans-are-there-on-earth/645914.md?page=2)