OCEAN · OCEANS & SEAS · PACIFIC OCEAN

Bass Strait

The Bass Strait is a sea of the Pacific Ocean, covering 112,699 km² — the #72 largest of the world's 101 named ocean and sea areas. Here's how it ranks, what borders it, and the live conditions at its centre right now.

BASS STRAIT · THE FACTS
Parent oceanPacific Ocean
Area112,699 km²
Size rank#72 of 101
Larger than29% of named seas

Boundaries & area: Marine Regions (VLIZ), IHO Sea Areas v3 — from the IHO “Limits of Oceans & Seas” (S-23). MRGID 4366.

AT THE HEART OF THE BASS STRAIT · RIGHT NOW
Sea temperature15.4°C / 59.7°F
Wave height1.3 m
Surface current1.1 km/h E

Live from Open-Meteo Marine at -39.5°, 146.4° (the sea's representative centre). A near-real-time model estimate.

How deep is the Bass Strait?

The IHO sea-area dataset that draws this map records each sea's name, boundary and surface area — not its depth, which varies enormously from the shallow shelf at its edges to its deepest trench. Rather than quote a single misleading number, we measure the water column directly: the live ocean currents trace its motion, and the deep-ocean layers (Argo floats and the descend-here column, coming to the Ocean canvas) read real temperature and depth as you go down.

SEE IT ON THE MAP

See the Bass Strait coloured on the live oceans-&-seas map.

Open the seas map →