Bodies of Water

Ross Sea

Citation Formats

General Reference

Geography Atlas. "Ross Sea." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://geography.interactiveatlas.org/bodies-of-water/ross-sea.

APA Style

Geography Atlas. (n.d.). Ross Sea. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://geography.interactiveatlas.org/bodies-of-water/ross-sea

BibTeX

@misc{geographyatlas-ross-sea,
  author = {Geography Atlas},
  title = {Ross Sea},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://geography.interactiveatlas.org/bodies-of-water/ross-sea},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

The Ross Sea is a marginal sea of the Southern Ocean, indenting the Antarctic coastline between Victoria Land and Marie Byrd Land within the Ross Embayment, its southern limit bounded by the Ross Ice Shelf, the largest ice shelf on the continent. British explorer James Clark Ross charted the sea in 1841 during his Antarctic expedition, and it carries his name. McMurdo Sound, on its western side near Ross Island, hosts the United States McMurdo Station and the New Zealand Scott Base and is usually free of ice in summer. On 28 October 2016, the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, under an agreement among 24 countries and the European Union, designated the Ross Sea region a marine protected area covering about 1.55 million square kilometers, the largest such designation in the world at the time, with roughly 1.12 million square kilometers fully closed to fishing. The protection runs for 35 years from December 2017 unless renewed. Scientists have called it one of the last largely intact marine ecosystems on Earth, home to Antarctic toothfish, orcas, minke whales, and large colonies of Adelie and emperor penguins.

Facts

Disputed

Area (sq km)

637,000 2

637,000 square kilometers is the figure most often given for the sea proper. Broader definitions of the surrounding Ross Embayment, and the 2016 marine protected area that extends over the sea and adjoining waters (1.55 million square kilometers, or 2.06 million including the waters under the Ross Ice Shelf), report much larger figures depending on where the boundary is drawn.

Maximum Depth (m)

1200 1

Continental shelf depths mostly range from under 300 meters to over 1,200 meters; troughs such as the Drygalski and Joides reach 500 to 600 meters and a moat around Ross Island reaches 800 to 900 meters.

Latitude

75 degrees south 2

Longitude

175 degrees west 2

Learn More

Named for the Man Who Found It

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

James Clark Ross had already made his name in the Arctic, locating the north magnetic pole in 1831, before he turned south. Commanding an expedition that sailed south for the Antarctic in October 1839 in the ships Erebus and Terror, he pushed further south than any prior explorer, discovering the sea, the great ice shelf at its southern limit, and the volcanic island near that shelf edge that all now carry some form of his name or his ships. The Ross Ice Shelf he found remains the largest ice shelf on the continent, roughly the size of Spain, and the sea itself, opening south of New Zealand between Victoria Land and Marie Byrd Land, is the southernmost sea on Earth, its own southern edge sitting barely 320 kilometers from the pole.

The Largest Protected Water on Earth

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

Getting twenty five governments to agree on anything is hard; getting them to agree to give up fishing rights over more than a million square kilometers of ocean took even longer. Negotiations over a Ross Sea marine protected area ran for years inside the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources before a breakthrough finally came on 28 October 2016: an agreement among 24 countries and the European Union that took effect the following December, covering roughly 1.55 million square kilometers, with about 1.12 million square kilometers closed entirely to commercial fishing. Scientists studying the region had lobbied for the designation for years, calling the Ross Sea one of the last large marine ecosystems on Earth still close to untouched, home to Antarctic toothfish, orcas, minke whales and enormous colonies of Adelie and emperor penguins. The protection is not permanent: it runs for 35 years and will lapse in 2051 unless the same commission renews it.

Cross-Tradition Connections