Bismarck Sea

The Bismarck Sea is a small marginal sea in the Pacific Ocean.

It is located north of the island of New Guinea and south-west of the Bismarck Archipelago. The latter separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean. To the north, the sea is open. To the south it is bounded by the island of New Britain, and is connected by a strait between New Guinea and New Britain, formed by the Dampierstraße and Vitiaz - road, with the Salomonensee.

The Bismarck Sea has an east- west extent of 1213 km and a north- south length of 577 km. The surface area is 225,000 km ² according to various sources to 320,000 km ². It is for long stretches 2000 meters deep and reaches the Manus Basin their greatest depth of 2800 meters.

In the Bismarck Sea battle was fought in the Bismarck Sea during the Pacific War (World War II ) from 2 to 4 March 1943.

The sea was named after the first Chancellor of the German Empire Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck Schönhausen, as the Bismarck Archipelago and the nearby Kaiser-Wilhelms -Land ( West New Guinea) in the late 19th century, part of a German colony under the name German New Guinea were.