OCEAN · OCEANS & SEAS · ATLANTIC OCEAN
English Channel
The English Channel is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, covering 81,419 km² — the #77 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.
Boundaries & area: Marine Regions (VLIZ), IHO Sea Areas v3 — from the IHO “Limits of Oceans & Seas” (S-23). MRGID 2389.
Live from Open-Meteo Marine at 49.9°, -2.1° (the sea's representative centre). A near-real-time model estimate.
How deep is the English Channel?
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 English Channel coloured on the live oceans-&-seas map.