The 15 Largest Bodies of Water in the World

Published on June 26, 2013 at 5:44 pm by David Nixon in Lists

Curious what the largest bodies of water in the world are? As you may already know, the Earth is often referred to as the “blue planet.” This particular nickname was given due to the immense volume of water covering the surface of our planet; more specifically, 70% of the entire Earth is covered by water, making up for 326,000,000,000,000,000,000 gallons.

Impressive right?

We have compiled a list of the 15 largest bodies of water in the world and in order to rank them we used their surfaces in square kilometers. Their maximum depth varies quite a lot but, in general, the larger the body of water, the deeper it also is. The largest on our list is the Pacific Ocean, which spreads between 5 continents: Asia, North America, South America, Australia, and Antartica. The Pacific Ocean is not only the largest body of water, but it is also the oldest.

Photo Credit: Hilmil1

Naturally, the other 3 top spots in our countdown are also represented by oceans, but the largest non-ocean waterbody to make our slideshow, on the 5^th spot to be more exact, is the South China Sea. It is a marginal sea, meaning that it is located between the limits of larger bodies of water surrounding it; more specifically, the Pacific Ocean itself. The Sea spreads itself from the straits of Malacca and Singapore up to the Strait of Taiwan.

Apart from the Pacific Ocean and South China Sea, our top 15 also includes the Sea of Japan, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Mediterranean Sea. But let’s take a look at the whole countdown.

See the largest bodies of water in the world: