Pacific Ocean

Pacific ocean' encompasses aproximately a third of the Earth's surface, having an area of 179.7 million square kilometres (69.4 million sq mi and 161 million cubic mi) —significantly larger than Earth's entire landmass, with room for another Africa to spare. Extending approximately 15,500 kilometres (9,600 mi) from the Bering Sea in the Arctic to the icy margins of Antarctica's Ross Sea in the south (although the Antarctic regions of the Pacific are sometimes described as part of the circumpolar Southern Ocean), the Pacific reaches its greatest east-west width at about 5°N latitude, where it stretches approximately 19,800 kilometres (12,300 mi) from Indonesia to the coast of Colombia and Peru – halfway across the world, and more than five times the diameter of the Moon. The western limit of the ocean is often placed at the Strait of Malacca.[citation needed] The lowest point on earth—the Mariana Trench—lies 10,911 metres (35,797 ft) below sea level. Its average depth is 4,280 metres (14,000 ft)[4].

The Pacific contains about 25,000 islands (more than the total number in the rest of the world's oceans combined), the majority of which are found south of the equator. Including partially submerged islands, the figure is substantially higher