# Only one ocean. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 6, 2011, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-one-ocean/573657 "2011-03-06T03:49:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2011, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-one-ocean/573657/41 "2011-03-08T15:22:08Z")
I boat in the Atlantic Sector of the World Ocean. ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2011, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-one-ocean/573657/42 "2011-03-08T16:33:14Z")
> [@Lionne](#): > > Please tell me I’m not the only one who got the urge to print this out, cut it up and tape it together into a mini-globe? Done it. At least a friend and I did a long time ago. You wind up with an \*octo-something though, not a real sphere. \*octo is a guess. Correct me, please. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2011, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-one-ocean/573657/43 "2011-03-08T16:40:24Z")
> [@mangeorge](#): > > Done it. At least a friend and I did a long time ago. You wind up with an \*octo-something though, not a real sphere. > \*octo is a guess. Correct me, please. 🙂 [Icosahedron](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icosahedron) ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2011, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-one-ocean/573657/44 "2011-03-08T17:07:11Z")
> [@Silophant](#): > > Really? How would you get over the Bering Strait? You wouldn’t need to. Just detour up to North Africa and have your armies attack Brazil. Once you get a foothold there, setting up camp in Argentina in the next turn should be easy. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Woodhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@Miss\_Woodhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Woodhouse)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2011, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-one-ocean/573657/45 "2011-03-08T18:02:16Z")
> [@](#): > > You wouldn’t need to. Just detour up to North Africa and have your armies attack Brazil. Once you get a foothold there, setting up camp in Argentina in the next turn should be easy. I just woke my cat up laughing. 🙂 I’m all for one Ocean. I’m sure you’d have all the grade school kids who are studying geography on your side. Fewer names to remember means better grades, right? However, having different names for oceans does help a bit in placing islands. Fiji is in the Pacific Ocean. The Canary islands are in the Atlantic. Just saying Ocean doesn’t help much and most people don’t know latitude and Longitude enough to use those as reference points. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2011, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-one-ocean/573657/46 "2011-03-08T18:04:03Z")
> [@mangeorge](#): > > Okay, I see the problem, **RR**. In the OP I typed “sinple” instead of “simple”. > Gettin’ old. % Oh sinple thing, where have you gone, I’m getting old and I need something to rely on % ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2011, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-one-ocean/573657/47 "2011-03-08T18:11:14Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > [Icosahedron](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icosahedron) Thanks. Wiki wouldn’t let me print it. ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2011, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-one-ocean/573657/48 "2011-03-09T05:54:39Z")
> [@mangeorge](#): > > Thanks. Wiki wouldn’t let me print it. [This page](http://www.progonos.com/furuti/MapProj/Normal/ProjPoly/Foldout/Icosahedron/icosahedron.html) has a selection of printable (pdf) icosahedral maps with assembly instructions. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2011, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-one-ocean/573657/49 "2011-03-09T07:11:44Z")
> [@dhkendall](#): > > Actually, you were just ahead of your time. There seems to be more mention lately of the one ocean, the [World Ocean](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Ocean), instead of the (5? 4? 3?) oceans that are traditional. Or sort of behind, the Greek have a different word for “a sea” (meaning, a more-or-less arbitrarily delimited extension of salty water) and “the sea” (meaning all the salty water). ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2011, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-one-ocean/573657/50 "2011-03-09T13:52:34Z")
> [@waterj2](#): > > [This page](http://www.progonos.com/furuti/MapProj/Normal/ProjPoly/Foldout/Icosahedron/icosahedron.html) has a selection of printable (pdf) icosahedral maps with assembly instructions. Cool! 🆒 Thanks ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2011, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-one-ocean/573657/51 "2011-03-09T15:12:52Z")
Soooo… how do you yanks define ocean/ the sea vs. lake? Because (as Ranga Yogeshwar just pointed out to us laypeople), it’s not depth - some lakes are deeper than the paltry East sea - and not salinity - the salt lake is much saltier than the ocean. The definition is that it’s an ocean if it’s part of the interconnected world ocean system. So if you can sail around with a boat, it’s an ocean. If it’s surrounded by land, it’s a lake. I get the feeling that a lot of geography/ geology definitions are extremely arbritrary. Similar to continent: a continent is bigger than an island. So what’s an island? It’s smaller than a continent. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2011, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-one-ocean/573657/52 "2011-03-09T17:00:31Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > I recall hearing from a sailor that the North Atlantic and South Atlantic should be counted as distinct oceans, so different are they in character. Actually, if you want to define oceans in terms of gyres (distinct mean flow fields in which the main body of water of each ocean is mostly isolated from its neighbors with negligible interchange) there are seven major oceans: The North Atlantic, South Atlantic, North Pacific, South Pacific, Indian, Arctic, and Antarctic (or Southern) Oceans. All wide-spanning north-south oceans (Atlantic and Pacific) are divided by equatorial inertia, i.e. that the water has to be accelerated to equatorial surface speed as it flows “down” from higher latitudes, and then the main oceans are divided by geography of the continents, or in the case of the Antarctic Ocean, by the Antarctic circumpolar flow. From a navigational, aqualogical, and commercial standpoint, the above divisions make far more sense than simply declaring the superficially connected water bodies as one giant ocean. The boundary between the Americas is pretty distinct, as the narrow bridge through Panama, and particularly through Colón, forms a natural bottleneck. A similar division across Eurasia due to the Ural Mountains, which significantly limited mercantile and cultural interchange defines the boundary between Asia and Europe. From a geophysical standpoint it would actually make more sense to divide the landmasses by association with a tectonic plate which would roughly map to the existing continental divisions (save for the Indian subcontinent and the Arabian Peninsula) but continents are as much geopolitical and cultural distinctions as geologic or geographic divisions, and so the existing divisions are workable as-is. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2011, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-one-ocean/573657/53 "2011-03-09T17:38:25Z")
> [@RadicalPi](#): > > This map shows the whole thing a little better, methinks. > > [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Dymaxion\_map\_ocean2.png](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Dymaxion_map_ocean2.png) It helps, but I bet Google Earth would show it a little more seamlessly (less seamfully?). ---
**Author:** ![BubbaDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bubbadog/32/333_2.png) [@BubbaDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BubbaDog)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2011, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-one-ocean/573657/54 "2011-03-09T18:15:05Z")
By the ops logic there’s only one street in my town. Hopefully we’ll name it Oak and not Eucalyptus. ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2011, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-one-ocean/573657/55 "2011-03-09T19:40:27Z")
> [@BubbaDog](#): > > By the ops logic there’s only one street in my town. > > Hopefully we’ll name it Oak and not Eucalyptus. I think an explanation of your \*logic \*is in order. And you’ll have to name that street “Street”. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2011, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-one-ocean/573657/56 "2011-03-09T19:43:50Z")
> [@BubbaDog](#): > > By the ops logic there’s only one street in my town. > > Hopefully we’ll name it Oak and not Eucalyptus. BTW; “thereabouts” is one word. I _can_ show you if you wish. Just bein’ friendly. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![BubbaDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bubbadog/32/333_2.png) [@BubbaDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BubbaDog)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2011, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-one-ocean/573657/57 "2011-03-10T16:32:01Z")
> [@mangeorge](#): > > BTW; “thereabouts” is one word. I _can_ show you if you wish. > Just bein’ friendly. 🙂 I honestly have no idea what your point is. By definition the ocean can be either the entire body of water surrounding the major continents (one ocean) or the individual sections of itself (multiple oceans). Did I miss the whoosh? That’s OK sometimes I do that. ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2011, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-one-ocean/573657/58 "2011-03-10T16:38:13Z")
> [@BubbaDog](#): > > I honestly have no idea what your point is. No whoosh, I came out of the blue. I’m referring to your location, there in the upper right. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2011, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-one-ocean/573657/59 "2011-03-10T17:09:30Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Or sort of behind, the Greek have a different word for “a sea” (meaning, a more-or-less arbitrarily delimited extension of salty water) and “the sea” (meaning all the salty water). My gf is sick (sick, I tell ya) of me running and diving into the Caribbean, then standing up and yelling to her, “Hey, this is salt water too!” I do this at every beach, every time we are on vacation. And yes, I drink too much on vacation. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-one-ocean/573657.md?page=2)