Compare Arctic Ocean (2001) - Bassas da India (2002)

Compare Arctic Ocean (2001) z Bassas da India (2002)

	Arctic Ocean (2001)	Bassas da India (2002)

Area	total: 14.056 million sq km note: includes Baffin Bay, Barents Sea, Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea, East Siberian Sea, Greenland Sea, Hudson Bay, Hudson Strait, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea, Northwest Passage, and other tributary water bodies	total: 0.2 sq km land: 0.2 sq km water: 0 sq km
Area - comparative	slightly less than 1.5 times the size of the US	about one-third the size of The Mall in Washington, DC
Background	The Arctic Ocean is the smallest of the world's five oceans (after the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, and the recently delimited Southern Ocean). The Northwest Passage (US and Canada) and Northern Sea Route (Norway and Russia) are two important seasonal waterways. A sparse network of air, ocean, river, and land routes circumscribes the Arctic Ocean.	This atoll is a volcanic rock surrounded by reefs and is awash at high tide. A French possession since 1897, it was placed under the administration of a commissioner residing in Reunion in 1968.
Climate	polar climate characterized by persistent cold and relatively narrow annual temperature ranges; winters characterized by continuous darkness, cold and stable weather conditions, and clear skies; summers characterized by continuous daylight, damp and foggy weather, and weak cyclones with rain or snow	tropical
Coastline	45,389 km	35.2 km
Country name	-	conventional long form: none conventional short form: Bassas da India
Dependency status	-	possession of France; administered by a high commissioner of the Republic, resident in Reunion
Disputes - international	some maritime disputes (see littoral states)	claimed by Madagascar
Economy - overview	Economic activity is limited to the exploitation of natural resources, including petroleum, natural gas, fish, and seals.	no economic activity
Elevation extremes	lowest point: Fram Basin -4,665 m highest point: sea level 0 m	lowest point: Indian Ocean 0 m highest point: unnamed location 2.4 m
Environment - current issues	endangered marine species include walruses and whales; fragile ecosystem slow to change and slow to recover from disruptions or damage; thinning polar icepack	NA
Flag description	-	the flag of France is used
Geographic coordinates	90 00 N, 0 00 E	21 30 S, 39 50 E
Geography - note	major chokepoint is the southern Chukchi Sea (northern access to the Pacific Ocean via the Bering Strait); strategic location between North America and Russia; shortest marine link between the extremes of eastern and western Russia; floating research stations operated by the US and Russia; maximum snow cover in March or April about 20 to 50 centimeters over the frozen ocean; snow cover lasts about 10 months	the islands emerge from a circular reef that sits atop a long-extinct, submerged volcano
Irrigated land	-	0 sq km (1998 est.)
Land boundaries	-	0 km
Land use	-	arable land: 0% permanent crops: 0% other: 100% (all rock) (1998 est.)
Legal system	-	the laws of France, where applicable, apply
Location	body of water between Europe, Asia, and North America, mostly north of the Arctic Circle	Southern Africa, islands in the southern Mozambique Channel, about one-half of the way from Madagascar to Mozambique
Map references	Arctic Region	Africa
Maritime claims	-	exclusive economic zone: 200 NM territorial sea: 12 NM
Military - note	-	defense is the responsibility of France
Natural hazards	ice islands occasionally break away from northern Ellesmere Island; icebergs calved from glaciers in western Greenland and extreme northeastern Canada; permafrost in islands; virtually ice locked from October to June; ships subject to superstructure icing from October to May	maritime hazard since it is usually under water during high tide and surrounded by reefs; subject to periodic cyclones
Natural resources	sand and gravel aggregates, placer deposits, polymetallic nodules, oil and gas fields, fish, marine mammals (seals and whales)	none
Population	-	uninhabited (July 2002 est.)
Ports and harbors	Churchill (Canada), Murmansk (Russia), Prudhoe Bay (US)	none; offshore anchorage only
Terrain	central surface covered by a perennial drifting polar icepack that averages about 3 meters in thickness, although pressure ridges may be three times that size; clockwise drift pattern in the Beaufort Gyral Stream, but nearly straight-line movement from the New Siberian Islands (Russia) to Denmark Strait (between Greenland and Iceland); the icepack is surrounded by open seas during the summer, but more than doubles in size during the winter and extends to the encircling landmasses; the ocean floor is about 50% continental shelf (highest percentage of any ocean) with the remainder a central basin interrupted by three submarine ridges (Alpha Cordillera, Nansen Cordillera, and Lomonosov Ridge)	volcanic rock
Waterways	-	none

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