Sea
Kara Sea
Natural Earth’s outline of the Kara Sea measures about 815,000 km² (315,000 mi²), the 11th largest of the 42 seas on sizeversus, and about the same size as Namibia.
500 km
- Namibia
- Kara Sea
The numbers
- 815,000km²Area, measured315,000 mi² · Natural Earth outline
- 880,000km²Area, publishedWikidata · 7.4% above our measure, flagged
- 620mGreatest depthWikidata
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%. This one is between 5% and 10% apart, so it is flagged and no comparison is built for it automatically.
What the numbers say about the Kara Sea
- The Arabian Sea, the largest of the 42 seas ranked on sizeversus, is 5.06× the size of the Kara Sea; the Kara Sea ranks 11th.
- The Kara Sea sits between the Labrador Sea (884,000 km²) and the Solomon Sea (745,000 km²) in the ranking.
- Counted as a country, the Kara Sea would be larger than 177 of the 212 countries listed on sizeversus and would rank 36th by area, between Namibia (823,000 km²) and Mozambique (788,000 km²).
- It is larger than 50 of the 51 US states and districts (the biggest of them is Texas, 685,000 km²) and smaller than 1.
- It is larger than 28 of the 31 provinces and regions of China (the biggest of them is Qinghai, 714,000 km²) and smaller than 3.
- The closest Chinese province is Qinghai (714,000 km²): the Kara Sea is 1.14× the size of Qinghai.
- Wikidata records a greatest depth of 620 m.
- On a standard web map (Web Mercator), a place at 76°N is drawn about 16.9× too large in area, so the Kara Sea looks bigger there than it is.
- Laid out flat, the Kara Sea stretches about 1,490 km north to south and 1,330 km east to west.
- Our measured 815,000 km² is 7.4% below Wikidata’s published figure of 880,000 km². This difference is flagged for review: a lake’s outline may include islands or bays that the published figure leaves out, or the water level may differ. The outline is kept because it is within 10%, and this page is not matched automatically to any other.
About the same size as
Countries
Chinese provinces
On the shore
Natural Earth’s outlines of Russia lie within 25 km of the outline of the Kara 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 Kara Sea ranks
The Kara Sea is the 11th largest of the 42 seas on sizeversus, ranked by measured area.
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