![]() As a result, the Baltic Sea contains a small, but rare, variety of freshwater and saltwater plants and animals that have been able to adapt to their brackish environment. It contains a unique mixture of saltwater and freshwater, making it the largest brackish water body on the planet. The Baltic Sea in Scandinavia is the world’s youngest sea having formed between 10 thousand and 15 thousand years ago from glacial erosion. The variety of the sizes, temperatures, and locations of the Earth’s seas also means that the marine ecosystems within each sea can vary greatly from one to the other. The Greenland Sea, for instance, has surface water that hovers near the freezing mark most of the year. It is also the saltiest sea, containing 41 parts of salt per 1,000 parts of seawater. The Red Sea, for instance, has an average temperature of around 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit). This tiny Turkish sea connects the Aegean Sea and the Black Sea.Ī sea can also be very warm for most of the year. ![]() Or, it can be as tiny as the Sea of Marmara, which is less than 12,950 square kilometers (5,000 square miles) in area. A sea can be more than 2.6 million square kilometers (1 million square miles) in area, such as the Caribbean Sea. Still, that leaves dozens of water bodies that fit the traditional definition of a sea, even though they can be quite different from one another. They contain saltwater and have been called seas for many years, but many oceanographers and geographers are more inclined to call them lakes. Other seas surrounded by land include the Aral Sea and the Dead Sea. The Caspian Sea is the most famous example, though this sea, which lies between Russia and Iran, is also referred to as the world’s largest lake. Moreover, in some cases, a sea is completely landlocked. But that number includes water bodies not always thought of as seas, such as the Gulf of Mexico and the Hudson Bay. Given that definition, there are about 50 seas around the world. In general, a sea is defined as a portion of the ocean that is partly surrounded by land. ![]() That is not an easy question to answer, because the definition of a sea leaves some room for interpretation. But what makes a sea different from other bodies of water? There are actually more than seven seas in the world. The phrase “the Seven Seas” has been around for centuries, but that term really refers to different parts of the ocean and several other large bodies of water.
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