Compare Arctic Ocean (2001) - Spratly Islands (2001)

Compare Arctic Ocean (2001) z Spratly Islands (2001)

	Arctic Ocean (2001)	Spratly Islands (2001)

Airports	-	4 (2000 est.)
Airports - with paved runways	-	total: 1 914 to 1,523 m: 1 (2000 est.)
Airports - with unpaved runways	-	total: 3 914 to 1,523 m: 1 under 914 m: 2 (2000 est.)
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: less than 5 sq km land: less than 5 sq km water: 0 sq km note: includes 100 or so islets, coral reefs, and sea mounts scattered over an area of nearly 410,000 sq km of the central South China Sea
Area - comparative	slightly less than 1.5 times the size of the US	NA
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.	Rich fishing grounds and the potential for gas and oil deposits have caused this archipelago to be claimed in its entirety by China, Taiwan, and Vietnam, while portions are claimed by Malaysia and the Philippines. All five parties have occupied certain islands or reefs, and occasional clashes have occurred between Chinese and Vietnamese naval forces
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	926 km
Country name	-	conventional long form: none conventional short form: Spratly Islands
Disputes - international	some maritime disputes (see littoral states)	all of the Spratly Islands are claimed by China, Taiwan, and Vietnam; parts of them are claimed by Malaysia and the Philippines; in 1984, Brunei established an exclusive fishing zone that encompasses Louisa Reef in the southern Spratly Islands, but has not publicly claimed the island; in 2000, China joined ASEAN discussions towards creating a South China Sea "code of conduct" - a non-legally binding confidence building measure
Economy - overview	Economic activity is limited to the exploitation of natural resources, including petroleum, natural gas, fish, and seals.	Economic activity is limited to commercial fishing. The proximity to nearby oil- and gas-producing sedimentary basins suggests the potential for oil and gas deposits, but the region is largely unexplored, and there are no reliable estimates of potential reserves; commercial exploitation has yet to be developed.
Elevation extremes	lowest point: Fram Basin -4,665 m highest point: sea level 0 m	lowest point: South China Sea 0 m highest point: unnamed location on Southwest Cay 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
Geographic coordinates	90 00 N, 0 00 E	8 38 N, 111 55 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	strategically located near several primary shipping lanes in the central South China Sea; includes numerous small islands, atolls, shoals, and coral reefs
Irrigated land	-	0 sq km (1993)
Land boundaries	-	0 km
Land use	-	arable land: 0% permanent crops: 0% permanent pastures: 0% forests and woodland: 0% other: 100%
Location	body of water between Europe, Asia, and North America, mostly north of the Arctic Circle	Southeastern Asia, group of reefs and islands in the South China Sea, about two-thirds of the way from southern Vietnam to the southern Philippines
Map references	Arctic Region	Southeast Asia
Maritime claims	-	NA
Military - note	-	Spratly Islands consist of more than 100 small islands or reefs, of which about 45 are claimed and occupied by China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam
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	typhoons; serious maritime hazard because of numerous reefs and shoals
Natural resources	sand and gravel aggregates, placer deposits, polymetallic nodules, oil and gas fields, fish, marine mammals (seals and whales)	fish, guano, undetermined oil and natural gas potential
Population	-	no indigenous inhabitants note: there are scattered garrisons occupied by personnel of several claimant states (July 2001 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)	flat
Waterways	-	none

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