877 articles
Spice trade
The spice trade is the historic commerce in pepper, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg that moved from India and the Spice Islands to Europe, later dominated by Portuguese and Dutch maritime empires.
Spratly Islands dispute
Spratly Islands dispute: overlapping sovereignty claims by China, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei over South China Sea reefs; 2016 arbitral ruling rejected China's nine-dash line; marked by island-building and coastguard incidents.
Square Bay
Square Bay (bahía Cuadrada) is a bay on the Fallières Coast of the Antarctic Peninsula at 67°50′S 67°00′W, entered past Horseshoe Island from northeast Marguerite Bay, charted by Rymill's BGLE in 1936–37.
St. Martin's Island
St. Martin's Island (Narikel Zinzira) is Bangladesh's southernmost island in the Bay of Bengal near Teknaf, its only coral-bearing island, with sandstone base rock, 98 hard coral species, severe shoreline erosion, and a nine-month tourism ban since 2025.
Stanley Patch
Stanley Patch, also charted by Argentina as Stacy banco, is a shoal and submerged scoria cone in Port Foster, Deception Island, Antarctica; it formed subaerially and shows the caldera flooded within the last ~2000 years.
Stefansson Strait
Stefansson Strait, also called Stefansson Sound or formerly Boggs Strait, is an ice-filled Antarctic strait 35 nautical miles long between Palmer Land and Hearst Island, photographed by Wilkins in 1928 and named for Arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson.
Storfjorden
Storfjorden (Svalbard), also called Wybe Jansz Water, is a large sea area between Spitsbergen and Edgeøya, Barentsøya, and Tusenøyane; a polynya producing dense brine-enriched bottom water, site of Norway's largest recorded earthquake (6.2, 2008).
Strait
Strait: a narrow water passage connecting two larger bodies of water, also called a strait or narrows. Formed by tectonics, erosion, or sea-level rise; major straits like Hormuz and Malacca are critical oil and trade chokepoints under UNCLOS transit passage.
Strait of Belle Isle
Strait of Belle Isle: strait between northern Newfoundland and southern Labrador, the Gulf of St. Lawrence's north entrance; about 78 miles long, 9.2 miles wide, ice-free roughly May/June to late December.
Strait of Dover
Strait of Dover (Pas de Calais): 30-km-wide eastern end of the English Channel linking it to the North Sea. Macrotidal, 3–9 m range, first IMO traffic separation scheme (1967), Channel Tunnel, Europe's busiest ferry port.
Strait of Georgia
Strait of Georgia (Georgia Strait), a semi-enclosed sea between Vancouver Island and mainland British Columbia, part of the Salish Sea; named by Vancouver in 1792 for King George III, fed mainly by the Fraser River.
Strait of Gibraltar (مضيق جبل طارق)
Strait of Gibraltar (مضيق جبل طارق), sea passage between Spain and Morocco connecting Atlantic and Mediterranean. 58–60 km long, 14 km wide at Tarifa; two-layer exchange of ~0.8 Sv each; 110,000–120,000 vessels yearly; planned 38.5 km Spain–Morocco rail tunnel.
Strait of Hormuz (تنگه هرمز)
The Strait of Hormuz (تنگه هرمز) is a narrow waterway between Iran and Oman connecting the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman, and the world's leading oil chokepoint.
Strait of Juan de Fuca
Strait of Juan de Fuca: sea passage between Vancouver Island and Washington's Olympic Peninsula, named 1787 by Barkley after the Greek pilot Juan de Fuca; main Pacific gateway to the Salish Sea with estuarine two-layer flow and about 8,300 deep-draft vessel transits yearly.
Strait of Magellan
The Strait of Magellan (Estrecho de Magallanes) is a 350-mile passage at South America's southern tip separating Patagonia from Tierra del Fuego, first transited by Magellan in 1520.
Strait of Malacca
Strait of Malacca, between Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, links the Indian and Pacific Oceans and is the world's largest oil chokepoint, carrying 23.2 million b/d, about 29% of seaborne oil, in 1H25.
Strait of Messina
Strait of Messina, also Fiume di Messina, the 3-km-wide passage between Sicily and Calabria linking the Tyrrhenian and Ionian seas, known for 3 m/s tidal currents, Scylla and Charybdis, and the planned €13.5 billion suspension bridge.
Strait of Tartary
Strait of Tartary (Tatarskiy Proliv, Mamiya Strait): long strait separating Sakhalin from the Russian mainland, linking the Sea of Okhotsk and Sea of Japan; narrowest part Nevelskoy Strait, 7.5 km wide, 10 m deep, frozen in winter.
Straits of Florida
Straits of Florida: channels between Florida, Cuba, and the Bahamas linking the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic; the Florida Current, headwaters of the Gulf Stream, carries about 32 Sv northward through them.
Straits of Tiran (مضيق تيران)
Straits of Tiran (مضيق تيران): narrow strait between Sinai and Tiran Island connecting the Gulf of Aqaba to the Red Sea; sole sea access to Eilat and Aqaba, closed by Egypt in 1967, international waterway under the 1979 Egypt-Israel treaty.
Strangford Loch
Strangford Lough (Loch Cuan) is Northern Ireland's largest sea lough, about 150 km2 in County Down, a drowned drumlin landscape with 120 islands, rich marine life, and Ramsar, SAC, SPA, and MCZ protections.
Subic Bay
Subic Bay, Luzon, Philippines: deep-water harbor and former largest US overseas naval base, converted by RA 7227 into the 670 km² Subic Bay Freeport Zone run by the SBMA, now a trade, shipbuilding, and logistics hub.
Submarine canyon
Submarine canyons are steep-walled valleys cut into continental slopes by turbidity currents, linking shelves to the deep sea. About 5,849 large canyons are mapped globally; they transport sediment, drive carbon sequestration, and host deep-sea biodiversity hotspots.
Submarine morphology
Submarine morphology: the study of seafloor landforms from continental shelf and slope to abyssal plains, trenches, and seamounts, shaped by tectonics, turbidity currents, and sediment supply, and mapped by sonar and altimetry.
Subtropical Indian Ocean Dipole
The Subtropical Indian Ocean Dipole (SIOD), also called the Indian Ocean Subtropical Dipole, is a climate variability mode in the southern Indian Ocean identified in 2001.
Sulu Sea
The Sulu Sea is a small, deep marginal sea of the western Pacific, lying between the Philippine islands of Palawan, Panay, Negros, and Mindanao and northeastern Borneo.
Sulzberger Bay
Sulzberger Bay is an Antarctic bay indenting the Sulzberger Ice Shelf on the Marie Byrd Land coast, discovered by the Byrd Antarctic Expedition in 1929.
Sunda Strait
Sunda Strait (Selat Sunda), sea passage between Java and Sumatra linking the Java Sea and Indian Ocean; 26-110 km wide, ALKI I sea lane, Krakatau volcanism, 1883 and 2018 tsunamis, 1942 naval battle.
Sunda Trench
Sunda Trench, also called Java Trench: oceanic trench south and west of Sumatra and Java in the eastern Indian Ocean, over 3200 km long, maximum depth 7290 m, formed by Indo-Australian Plate subduction at 60–73 mm/yr.
Surigao Strait
Surigao Strait is a Philippine strait between Leyte, Panaon, Dinagat, and Mindanao linking the Pacific to Leyte Gulf and the Mindanao Sea; a shipping route with 5–6 knot tidal streams and site of the 1944 night battle.