The oceans or seas? Do we say ocean or sea? Both really.

Over the centuries we have called it many things, the seas, the sea, ocean and even the aquatic world or oceanic realm. Nevertheless, our planet which is covered by approximately 71 per cent of water which encompasses the globe, you would be forgiven to think it is a water world, and of course, that is correct.

Indeed we live in a world full of water which is surrounded by the remaining 29 per cent of the landmass we humans dwell upon every day, however, this large mass of ocean is one body can be easily confused as being separate parts of water or oceans. This large mass of water or oceans can be categorized into one body of water, the oceans are a continuous body of water, but for regional sake, they are of course divided up into several oceans or seas.

When we talk about the oceans or seas, we are identifying 5 oceans. While it does seem confusing or misleading that we all call our planet “planet earth” we often don’t realise much of it is water and less of it island. We, humans, live on the land which is surrounded predominately by water would be a fair and accurate description.

Adding to this fact approximately 97 per cent of all water is found in the ocean and not in rivers, lakes or dams for example, of course, this contributes as well to a large proportion of water on earth.

Generally speaking, we often think of the oceans as some far and wide expanse, yet we live on proximity to it in many nations around the world, most people in the world live within a radius of 150 to 200km of water and that can mean oceans or seas.

While this not set in stone in both its spoken form or written form in language, it is a widely held view that ocean and seas are used interchangeably but their definitions are quite different.

And what do we mean by a sea? When we refer to the sea we are referring to its size, a sea is generally smaller and shallower in-depth than an ocean, and by an ocean of course we mean it is a lot deeper and larger than a sea, for example, the Pacific Ocean is larger and deeper than the Arctic Sea, this is the general naming convention when we refer to the “ocean” or “sea”.