Sea
Bering Sea
Natural Earth’s outline of the Bering Sea measures about 2,232,000 km² (862,000 mi²), the 4th largest of the 42 seas on sizeversus, and 97% of the size of Algeria.
500 km
- Algeria
- Bering Sea
The numbers
- 2,232,000km²Area, measured862,000 mi² · Natural Earth outline
- 2,300,000km²Area, publishedWikidata · 2.9% above our measure
- 4,191mGreatest depthaverage about 1,700 m
- 3,796,000km³VolumeWikidata
The area is measured from the outline drawn above, on the WGS84 ellipsoid; the published figure is shown beside it, and a water body is kept only if the two are within 10%.
What the numbers say about the Bering Sea
- The Arabian Sea, the largest of the 42 seas ranked on sizeversus, is 1.85× the size of the Bering Sea; the Bering Sea ranks 4th.
- The Bering Sea sits between the Caribbean Sea (2,829,000 km²) and the Bay of Bengal (2,037,000 km²) in the ranking.
- Counted as a country, the Bering Sea would be larger than 201 of the 212 countries listed on sizeversus and would rank 12th by area, between Algeria (2,309,000 km²) and Greenland (2,154,000 km²).
- It is larger than all 51 US states and districts.
- It is larger than all 31 provinces and regions of China.
- The closest US state is Alaska (1,505,000 km²): the Bering Sea is 1.48× the size of Alaska.
- Wikidata records a greatest depth of 4,191 m; with its volume that gives an average depth of about 1,700 m.
- Wikidata records a volume of 3,796,000 km³. Poured over Mexico (1,958,000 km²), that water would stand 1,939 m deep.
- On a standard web map (Web Mercator), a place at 58°N is drawn about 3.5× too large in area, so the Bering Sea looks bigger there than it is.
- Laid out flat, the Bering Sea stretches about 1,700 km north to south and 2,170 km east to west.
- Our measured 2,232,000 km² is 2.9% below Wikidata’s published figure of 2,300,000 km². Published areas of lakes and seas move with the water level and with what is counted, so a few percent is expected.
About the same size as
Countries
US states
Chinese provinces
On the shore
Natural Earth’s outlines of Russia and the United States lie within 25 km of the outline of the Bering Sea. That is what its geometry says, and it is not a statement about who owns the water or where any border runs in it.
Where the Bering Sea ranks
The Bering Sea is the 4th largest of the 42 seas on sizeversus, ranked by measured area.
Compare the Bering Sea
Share this outline
Sources and method
- Outline
- Natural Earth, 1:10m Marine Areas (geography_marine_polys), public domain (Marine Areas (geography_marine_polys)). Natural Earth draws marine areas for labels and cuts them at named sub-areas; the outline is kept because its area matches the published one.
- Boundary
- A lake or a sea has no legal boundary of its own. The outline is a cartographic one, and the page says so by showing the measured area beside the published one.
- Area basis
- Measured outline: computed on the WGS84 ellipsoid from the full-detail outline and shown rounded. Published figure: Wikidata (CC0), fetched 2026-11-11. An outline is kept within 10% of the published figure and matched to other places automatically within 5%.
- Depth, volume, height
- As recorded in Wikidata; a volume that cannot be right for the area and depth is left out.
- Shore
- Countries whose Natural Earth outline contains or comes close to the water's outline; computed, not a statement of ownership.
- Drawing
- Each outline is projected with an equal-area projection centred on its own centroid, so areas stay true and two can be laid over each other.
- Data built
- 2026-11-11