China Sea

Mekong River

China Sea, part of the western Pacific Ocean bordering the Asian mainland on the east-southeast.

The China Sea consists of two parts, the South China Sea (Chinese: Nan Hai) and the East China Sea (Chinese: Dong Hai), which connect through the shallow Taiwan Strait between Taiwan and mainland China.

The South China Sea is bounded on the west by the Asian mainland, on the south by a rise in the seabed between Sumatra and Borneo, and on the east by Borneo, the Philippines, and Taiwan. The sea’s northern boundary extends from the northernmost point of Taiwan to the coast of Fujian province, China. As the largest marginal sea of the western Pacific, it covers an area of about 1,423,000 square miles (3,685,000 square km) and has a mean depth of 3,478 feet (1,060 m). The major topographic feature of the South China Sea is a deep, rhombus-shaped basin in the eastern portion, with reef-studded shoal areas rising up steeply within the basin to the south and northwest. The deepest section, called the China Sea Basin, has a maximum depth of 16,457 feet (5,016 m). A broad, shallow shelf extends up to 150 miles (240 km) in width between the mainland and the northwestern side of the basin and includes the Gulf of Tonkin and Taiwan Strait. To the south, off southern Vietnam, the shelf narrows and connects with the Sundra Shelf, which is one of the largest sea shelves in the world. The Sundra Shelf covers the area between Borneo, Sumatra, and Malaysia, including the southern portion of the South China Sea.

The major rivers draining into the sea are the tributaries forming the Zhu (Pearl) River delta between Hong Kong and Macau, the Xi River, which enters near Macau, and the Red and Mekong rivers, which enter in Vietnam. Weather in the region is tropical and largely controlled by monsoon winds. Annual rainfall varies from about 80 inches (2,000 mm) to as much as 160 inches around the southern basin; summer typhoons are frequent. Monsoons also control the sea-surface currents as well as the exchange of water between the South China Sea and adjacent bodies of water.

The East China Sea extends northeastward from the South China Sea and is bounded on the west by the Asian mainland and on the east by the Ryukyu Islands chain, Japan’s southernmost main island of Kyushu, and Cheju Island, off South Korea. An imaginary east-west line connecting Cheju Island with the mainland of China separates the East China Sea from the Yellow Sea to its north. The East China Sea, with an area of 290,000 square miles (751,100 square km), is generally shallow, having an average depth of only 1,145 feet (349 m). The Okinawa Trough, its deepest section, extends alongside the Ryukyu Island chain and has a maximum depth of 8,912 feet (2,717 m). The western edge of the sea is a continuation of the shelf that extends from the South China Sea north to the Yellow Sea. The weather of the East China Sea is also dominated by the monsoon wind system. Warm, moist winds from the western Pacific bring a rainy summer season accompanied by typhoons, but in the winter the monsoons reverse and bring cold, dry air from the Asian continent in the northwest. The winds influence the water circulation of the Kuroshio (Japan Current), a northward-flowing branch of the warm North Equatorial Current that flows near Taiwan.

Both seas are heavily fished; tuna, mackerel, croaker, anchovy, shrimp, and shellfish constitute the main catch. Fish from the South China Sea provide as much as 50 percent of the animal protein consumed along the densely populated coast of Southeast Asia. Both seas also serve as major shipping routes. The South China Sea, with the Strait of Malacca, forms the main transport route between the Pacific and Indian oceans, and the East China Sea serves as the main shipping route from the South China Sea to Japanese and other North Pacific ports.