The Sea of Okhotsk; Historically also known as , or as ; ) is a

marginal sea This is a list of seas of the World Ocean, including marginal seas, areas of water, various gulfs, bights, bays, and straits. In many cases it is a matter of tradition for a body of water to be named a sea or a bay, etc., therefore all these ...

of the western

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

. It is located between

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

Kamchatka Peninsula The Kamchatka Peninsula (, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and western coastlines, respectively. Immediately offshore along the Pacific ...

on the east, the

Kuril Islands The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands are a volcanic archipelago administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast in the Russian Far East. The islands stretch approximately northeast from Hokkaido in Japan to Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia, separating the ...

on the southeast,

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

's island of

Hokkaido is the list of islands of Japan by area, second-largest island of Japan and comprises the largest and northernmost prefectures of Japan, prefecture, making up its own list of regions of Japan, region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō fr ...

on the south, the island of

Sakhalin Sakhalin ( rus, Сахали́н, p=səxɐˈlʲin) is an island in Northeast Asia. Its north coast lies off the southeastern coast of Khabarovsk Krai in Russia, while its southern tip lies north of the Japanese island of Hokkaido. An islan ...

along the west, and a stretch of eastern

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

n coast along the west and north. Its northeast corner is the Shelikhov Gulf. The sea is named for the port of Okhotsk, itself named for the Okhota River.

Geography

Sea-of-Okhotsk-Full-Map-Hokkaido-Kuril-Kamchatka-Sakhalin

Sea of Okhotsk Season Winter Summer 2008

The Sea of Okhotsk covers an area of , with a mean depth of and a maximum depth of . It is connected to the

Sea of Japan The Sea of Japan is the marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, the Korean Peninsula, and the mainland of the Russian Far East. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it ...

on either side of Sakhalin: on the west through the Sakhalin Gulf and the Gulf of Tartary; on the south through the

La Pérouse Strait La Pérouse Strait (), or , is a strait dividing the southern part of the Russian island of Sakhalin from the northern part of the Japanese island of Hokkaidō, and connecting the Sea of Japan on the west with the Sea of Okhotsk on the east. ...

. In winter, navigation on the Sea of Okhotsk is impeded by ice floes. Ice floes form due to the large amount of freshwater from the

Amur River The Amur River () or Heilong River ( zh, s=黑龙江) is a perennial river in Northeast Asia, forming the natural border between the Russian Far East and Northeast China (historically the Outer and Inner Manchuria). The Amur ''proper'' is ...

, lowering the

salinity Salinity () is the saltiness or amount of salt (chemistry), salt dissolved in a body of water, called saline water (see also soil salinity). It is usually measured in g/L or g/kg (grams of salt per liter/kilogram of water; the latter is dimensio ...

of upper levels, often raising the

freezing point The melting point (or, rarely, liquefaction point) of a substance is the temperature at which it changes state of matter, state from solid to liquid. At the melting point the solid and liquid phase (matter), phase exist in Thermodynamic equilib ...

of the sea surface. The distribution and thickness of ice floes depends on many factors: the location, the time of year, water currents, and the sea temperatures. Cold air from Siberia forms sea ice in the northwestern Sea of Okhotsk. As the ice forms, it expels salt into the deeper layers. This heavy water flows east toward the Pacific, carrying oxygen and nutrients, supporting abundant sea life. The Sea of Okhotsk has warmed in some places by as much as 3°C (5.4°F) since preindustrial times, three times faster than the global mean. Warming inhibits the formation of sea ice and also drives fish populations north. The

salmon Salmon (; : salmon) are any of several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the genera ''Salmo'' and ''Oncorhynchus'' of the family (biology), family Salmonidae, native ...

catch on the northern Japanese coast has fallen 70% in the last 15 years, while the Russian

chum salmon The chum salmon (''Oncorhynchus keta''), also known as dog salmon or keta salmon, is a species of anadromous salmonid fish from the genus ''Oncorhynchus'' (Pacific salmon) native to the coastal rivers of the North Pacific and the Beringian Arctic ...

catch has quadrupled. With the exception of

, one of the Japanese home islands, the sea is surrounded on all sides by territory administered by the Russian Federation. South

and the

were administered by Japan until 1945. Japan claims the southern Kuril Islands and refers to them as Northern Territories.Bruce A. Elleman, Michael R. Nichols and Matthew J. Ouimet, ''A Historical Reevaluation of America's Role in the Kuril Islands Dispute'', Pacific Affairs, Vol. 71, No. 4 (Winter, 1998–1999), pp. 489–504 File:Freezing the waters of the Sea of Okhotsk. Magadan.jpg, Nagayevo Bay near

Magadan Magadan ( rus, Магадан, p=məɡɐˈdan) is a Port of Magadan, port types of inhabited localities in Russia, town and the administrative centre of Magadan Oblast, Russia. The city is located on the isthmus of the Staritsky Peninsula by the ...

, Russia File:Shiretoko National Park.jpg, Shiretoko National Park on the Sea of Okhotsk coast of

, Japan

Extent

The

International Hydrographic Organization The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) (French: ''Organisation Hydrographique Internationale'') is an intergovernmental organization representing hydrography. the IHO comprised 102 member states. A principal aim of the IHO is to ...

defines the limits of the Sea of Okhotsk as follows:

Islands

Some of the Sea of Okhotsk's islands are quite large, including Japan's second-largest island, Hokkaido, as well as Russia's largest island, Sakhalin. Practically all of the sea's islands are either in coastal waters (such as the Shantar Islands) or belong to the various islands making up the Kuril Islands chain. These fall either under undisputed Japanese or Russian ownership or disputed ownership between Japan and Russia. Iony Island is the only island located in open waters and belongs to the

Khabarovsk Krai Khabarovsk Krai (, ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject (a krai) of Russia. It is located in the Russian Far East and is administratively part of the Far Eastern Federal District. The administrative centre of the krai is the types of ...

of the

Russian Federation Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. The majority of the sea's islands are uninhabited, making them ideal breeding grounds for seals, sea lions,

seabirds Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same envi ...

, and other sea island fauna. Large colonies of crested auklets use the Sea of Okhotsk as a nesting site.

History

Pre-modern

The Okhotsk culture and the later

Ainu people The Ainu are an Indigenous peoples, indigenous ethnic group who reside in northern Japan and southeastern Russia, including Hokkaido and the Tōhoku region of Honshu, as well as the land surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk, such as Sakhalin, the Ku ...

, a coastal fishing and hunter-gatherer people, were located around the lands surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk, as well as in northern Japan.

European exploration and settlement

Russian explorers Vassili Poyarkov (1639) and Ivan Moskvitin (1645) were the first Europeans to visit the Sea of Okhotsk,, ''Sea of Okhotsk'', In: ''Морской сборник'', Issue 1, 1940
pp.69-92
/ref> and probably the island of Sakhalin in the 1640s. The Dutch captain Maarten Gerritsz Vries in the ''Breskens'' entered the Sea of Okhotsk from the south-east in 1643, and charted parts of the Sakhalin coast and Kuril Islands, but failed to realize that either Sakhalin or Hokkaido are islands. During this period, the sea was sometimes known as the Sea of Kamchatka. The first and foremost Russian settlement on the shore was the port of Okhotsk, which relinquished commercial supremacy to Ayan in the 1840s. The

Russian-American Company The Russian-American Company Under the High Patronage of His Imperial Majesty was a state-sponsored chartered company formed largely on the basis of the Shelikhov-Golikov Company, United American Company. Emperor Paul I of Russia chartered the c ...

all but monopolized the commercial navigation of the sea in the first half of the 19th century. The

Second Kamchatka Expedition The Great Northern Expedition () or Second Kamchatka Expedition () was a major Russian Arctic expedition between roughly 1733 and 1743, which mapped most of the Arctic coast of Siberia and much of the Arctic coast of North America, greatly red ...

under

Vitus Bering Vitus Jonassen Bering ( , , ; baptised 5 August 1681 – 19 December 1741),All dates are here given in the Julian calendar, which was in use throughout Russia at the time. also known as Ivan Ivanovich Bering (), was a Danish-born Russia ...

systematically mapped the entire coast of the sea, starting in 1733.

Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse Commodore (rank), Commodore Jean François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse (; 23 August 1741 – ) was a French Navy officer and explorer. Having enlisted in the Navy at the age of 15, he had a successful career and in 1785 was appointed to lea ...

and

William Robert Broughton William Robert Broughton (22 March 176214 March 1821) was a British naval officer in the late 18th century. As a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, he commanded HMS ''Chatham'' as part of the Vancouver Expedition, a voyage of exploration through t ...

were the first non-Russian European navigators known to have passed through these waters other than Vries. Ivan Krusenstern explored the eastern coast of Sakhalin in 1805. Mamiya Rinzō and

Gennady Nevelskoy Gennady Ivanovich Nevelskoy (; in Drakino, Soligalichsky Uyezd, Kostroma Governorate – in St. Petersburg) was a Russian navigator and naval officer. In 1829 he joined the Naval Cadet Corps and in 1846 was given the rank of ...

determined that Sakhalin was indeed an island separated from the mainland by a narrow strait. The first detailed summary of the

hydrology Hydrology () is the scientific study of the movement, distribution, and management of water on Earth and other planets, including the water cycle, water resources, and drainage basin sustainability. A practitioner of hydrology is called a hydro ...

of the Sea of Okhotsk was prepared and published by

Stepan Makarov Stepan Osipovich Makarov (, ; – ) was a Russian vice-admiral, commander in the Imperial Russian Navy, oceanographer, member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and author of several books. He was a pioneer of insubmersibility theory (the ...

in 1894.

Fishing

The Sea of Okhotsk is rich in biological resources, with various kinds of fish, shellfish and crabs. The harsh conditions of crab fishing in the Sea of Okhotsk is the subject of the most famous novel of the Japanese writer Takiji Kobayashi, ''The Crab Cannery Ship'' (1929).

The Peanut Hole

The Peanut Hole (named for its shape) is an area of open ocean at the center of the Sea of Okhotsk, about wide and long, surrounded by Russia's

exclusive economic zone An exclusive economic zone (EEZ), as prescribed by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, is an area of the sea in which a sovereign state has exclusive rights regarding the exploration and use of marine natural resource, reso ...

(EEZ). Since the Peanut Hole is not in the Russian EEZ, any country could fish there, and some began doing so in large numbers in 1991, catching perhaps as much as one million metric tons of

pollock Pollock or pollack (pronounced ) is the common name used for either of the two species of North Atlantic ocean, marine fish in the genus ''Pollachius''. ''Pollachius pollachius'' is referred to as "pollock" in North America, Ireland and the Unit ...

in 1992. This was seen by the Russian Federation as presenting a danger to Russian fish stocks, since the fish move in and out of the Peanut Hole from the Russian EEZ. The Russian Federation petitioned the United Nations to declare the Peanut Hole to be part of Russia's

continental shelf A continental shelf is a portion of a continent that is submerged under an area of relatively shallow water, known as a shelf sea. Much of these shelves were exposed by drops in sea level during glacial periods. The shelf surrounding an islan ...

. In November 2013, a United Nations subcommittee accepted the Russian argument, and in March 2014 the full United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf ruled in favor of the Russian Federation.

Whaling

Bowhead whale The bowhead whale (''Balaena mysticetus''), sometimes called the Greenland right whale, Arctic whale, and polar whale, is a species of baleen whale belonging to the family Balaenidae and is the only living representative of the genus '' Balaena' ...

s were first caught in 1847, and dominated the catch between 1852 and the late 1860s.Vaughan, R. (1984). "Historical survey of the European whaling industry". In ''Arctic Whaling: Proceedings of the International Symposium'', pp. 121-145. University of Groningen. Between 1850 and 1853 the majority of the fleet went to the

Bering Strait The Bering Strait ( , ; ) is a strait between the Pacific and Arctic oceans, separating the Chukchi Peninsula of the Russian Far East from the Seward Peninsula of Alaska. The present Russia–United States maritime boundary is at 168° 58' ...

region to hunt bowheads, but intense competition, poor ice conditions, and declining catches forced the fleet back to the Sea of Okhotsk. From 1854 to 1856, an average of over 160 vessels cruised in the sea each year. As catches declined between 1858 and 1860 the fleet shifted back to the Bering Strait region. The Russian military marine mammal program reportedly sources some of its animals from the Sea of Okhotsk.

Modern

South Sakhalin was administered by Japan as

Karafuto Prefecture , was established by the Empire of Japan in 1907 to govern the southern part of Sakhalin. This territory became part of the Empire of Japan in 1905 after the Russo-Japanese War, when the portion of Sakhalin south of 50°N was ceded by the R ...

from 1907 to 1949. The Kuril Islands were Japanese from 1855 and 1875 till the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

in 1945. Afterward, the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

occupied the territory. During the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

, the Sea of Okhotsk was the scene of several successful U.S. Navy operations (including Operation Ivy Bells) to tap

Soviet Navy The Soviet Navy was the naval warfare Military, uniform service branch of the Soviet Armed Forces. Often referred to as the Red Fleet, the Soviet Navy made up a large part of the Soviet Union's strategic planning in the event of a conflict with t ...

undersea communications cables. These operations were documented in the 1998 book '' Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage''. The sea (and surrounding area) were also the scene of the

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

attack on

Korean Air Lines Flight 007 Korean Air Lines Flight 007 (KE007/KAL007)In aviation, two types of Airline codes, airline designators are used. The flight number KAL 007, with the ICAO code for Korean Air Lines, was used by air traffic control. In ticketing, however, IAT ...

in 1983. The

Soviet Pacific Fleet The Pacific Fleet () is the Russian Navy fleet in the Pacific Ocean. Established in 1731 as part of the Imperial Russian Navy, the fleet was known as the Okhotsk Military Flotilla (1731–1856) and Siberian Military Flotilla (1856–1918), f ...

used the sea as a ballistic missile submarine

bastion A bastion is a structure projecting outward from the curtain wall of a fortification, most commonly angular in shape and positioned at the corners of the fort. The fully developed bastion consists of two faces and two flanks, with fire from the ...

, a strategy that Russia continues. Despite its proximity to Japan, the Sea of Okhotsk has no native etymology in the

Japanese language is the principal language of the Japonic languages, Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people. It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language, and within the Japanese dia ...

; its name, ' ('), is a transcription of the Russian name. This is also reflected in the name of Hokkaido's

Okhotsk Subprefecture is a Subprefectures of Hokkaido, subprefecture of Hokkaido, Hokkaido Prefecture, Japan. It was renamed from the earlier Abashiri Subprefecture on April 1, 2010. Abashiri Subprefecture was established in 1897. Etymology Abashiri Prefecture was n ...

, which faces the Sea of Okhotsk and is also known as the .

Oil and gas exploration

Twenty-nine zones of possible oil and gas accumulation have been identified on the Sea of Okhotsk shelf, which runs along the coast. Total reserves are estimated at 3.5 billion tons of equivalent fuel, including 1.2 billion tons of oil and 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas. On 18 December 2011, the Russian oil drilling rig '' Kolskaya'' capsized and sank in a storm in the Sea of Okhotsk, some from Sakhalin island, where it was being towed from

Kamchatka The Kamchatka Peninsula (, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and western coastlines, respectively. Immediately offshore along the Pacific ...

. Reportedly, its pumps failed, causing it to take on water and sink. The platform carried 67 people, of which 14 were rescued by the ''Magadan'' and the tugboat ''Natftogaz-55''. The platform was subcontracted to a company working for the Russian energy giant

Gazprom PJSC Gazprom ( rus, Газпром, , ɡɐsˈprom) is a Russian State-owned enterprise, majority state-owned multinational Energy industry, energy corporation headquartered in the Lakhta Center in Saint Petersburg. The Gazprom name is a contract ...

Notable seaports

, Magadan, Russia; population: 95,000 * Palana, Kamchatka, Russia; population: 3,000 *

Abashiri is a city located in Okhotsk Subprefecture, Hokkaido, Japan. Abashiri is known as the site of the Abashiri Prison, a Meiji-era facility used for the incarceration of political prisoners. The old prison has been turned into a museum, but the ...

, Hokkaido, Japan; population: 38,000 * Monbetsu, Hokkaido, Japan; population: 25,000 *

Wakkanai file:Wakkanai city office.JPG, 290px, Wakkanai City Hall file:Wakkanai shore.jpg, 290px, Shore of Wakkanai is a Cities of Japan, city located in Sōya Subprefecture, Hokkaido, Japan. Wakkanai is the capital of Sōya Subprefecture. Situated approx ...

, Hokkaido, Japan; population: 38,000

Explanatory notes

References

External links

Overview of Okhotsk region (PDF)
{{Authority control Bodies of water of Kamchatka Krai Bodies of water of Khabarovsk Krai Bodies of water of Magadan Oblast Bodies of water of Sakhalin Oblast Geography of Hokkaido Geography of Northeast Asia Geography of the Russian Far East Okhotsk Pacific Coast of Russia Okhotsk Okhotsk Okhotsk Temperate Northern Pacific