Seas of the World
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50 free Seas of the World trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The oceans get the headlines, but the seas are where the stories are. Some are really lakes, one has no shore, one is vanishing, and a few are so salty, shallow or still that they behave like nowhere else on the planet. Every one has a place on the map that is worth knowing. This world seas quiz moves from the famous names every atlas shows to the smaller waters only keen geographers can place. You will be asked which sea matches a set of neighbouring countries, a nickname, a shipwreck or a record, along with the straits and channels that join one sea to the next. It suits geography fans, students revising a map of the world, and quiz hosts who want a ready-made round with answers explained. Start with the seas everyone has heard of and see how far from shore you can get.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which body of water, whose shores are the lowest dry land on Earth, lets bathers float with ease?
Dead Sea
The Dead Sea is almost ten times as salty as the ocean, which makes its water so dense that swimming feels like floating. Its surface lies about 440 metres below sea level.
Q 02Which sea, bounded by four Atlantic currents rather than by land, is the only one with no coastline?
Sargasso Sea
The Sargasso Sea is marked out by its mats of brown Sargassum seaweed and calm blue water. European eels hatch there, then travel all the way to Europe as they grow.
Q 03Which sea, bordered by Iran, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, is often listed as the world's largest lake?
Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea covers an area larger than Germany and holds roughly 40% of all the world's lake water. Its sturgeon produce the roe behind its famous caviar.
Q 04Which Central Asian sea mostly dried up after Soviet irrigation diverted the rivers that fed it?
Aral Sea
The Aral Sea was once among the world's largest lakes, but by 2007 it had shrunk to a tenth of its former size. Its eastern basin is now called the Aralkum Desert.
Q 05Which sea bordering Turkey and Ukraine has oxygen-free depths that preserve ancient shipwrecks?
Black Sea
The Black Sea is more than 90% oxygen-free in its depths, because its deep water never mixes with the surface. Byzantine ships have been found there in excellent condition.
Q 06Which sea between Britain and Norway covers Doggerland, a plain where Stone Age hunters once lived?
North Sea
The North Sea swallowed Doggerland between 10,000 and 7,000 years ago as melting ice raised the oceans. Fishing boats there still drag up mammoth remains and prehistoric tools.
Q 07Which sea between Alaska and Asia is fished for king crab on the TV series Deadliest Catch?
Bering Sea
The Bering Sea covers a drowned land bridge that most scientists think the first humans crossed into the Americas. It takes its name from a Danish-born navigator who explored it in 1728.
Q 08Which sea off Queensland named a 1942 battle in which the rival fleets never saw each other?
Coral Sea
The Coral Sea holds the Great Barrier Reef, the largest reef system on Earth. In the 1942 battle, American and Japanese carriers struck from over the horizon using aircraft alone.
Q 09Which sea, nicknamed "the Ditch" by people on both shores, separates Australia from New Zealand?
Tasman Sea
The Tasman Sea is about 2,000 km wide, and it takes its name from the Dutch explorer who in 1642 became the first European known to cross it.
Q 10Which stretch of water, just 14 km wide at its narrowest, separates Europe from Africa?
Strait of Gibraltar
The Strait of Gibraltar is flanked by the heights the ancients called the Pillars of Hercules, which gave the strait its Latin name, Fretum Herculeum.
Q 11Which sea between Africa and Saudi Arabia is lined with resorts such as Egypt's Sharm El Sheikh?
Red Sea
The Red Sea is one of the warmest and saltiest seas in the world, because no major river feeds it and evaporation is intense.
Q 12Which sea, once the haunt of the pirate Blackbeard, washes Jamaica, Aruba and the coast of Colombia?
Caribbean Sea
The Caribbean Sea reaches its deepest point, about 7,686 metres down, in the Cayman Trough between Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.
Q 13Which sea, enclosed by Sweden, Finland and Poland, is famed for the amber found along its shores?
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is the world's largest basin of brackish water, too fresh for the shipworm, so old wooden wrecks such as the warship Vasa stay well preserved.
Q 21Which sea does South Korea want the world to call the East Sea, in a dispute dating from 1992?
Sea of Japan
The Sea of Japan has almost no tides, because it is so nearly cut off from the Pacific. North Korea prefers a third name for it, the Korean East Sea.
Q 22Which sea west of the Korean Peninsula is named for the silt that great rivers pour into it?
Yellow Sea
The Yellow Sea receives so much sand and silt from rivers such as the Yellow River that its water turns a golden colour.
Q 23Which small inland sea lies entirely within Turkey, between the country's European and Asian shores?
Sea of Marmara
The Sea of Marmara is named after its largest island, itself named for the marble found there. At about 11,350 square kilometres, it is often called the smallest sea in the world.
Q 14Which sea between Vietnam and the Philippines holds the disputed Spratly and Paracel islands?
South China Sea
The South China Sea carried $3.4 trillion of the world's $16 trillion in shipping trade in 2016, about a fifth of the total. Several countries claim its hundreds of islets and reefs.
Q 15Which sea lies between India and Oman, with Pakistan's port of Karachi on its northern shore?
Arabian Sea
The Arabian Sea has carried trade since the region's first international networks formed in the 3rd millennium BC. Its sailors long had to time their voyages around the monsoon winds.
Q 16Which sea between Greece and Turkey is dotted with islands such as Rhodes, Naxos and Lesbos?
Aegean Sea
The Aegean Sea was once known simply as the Archipelago, which is how that word came to mean any sea scattered with islands.
Q 17Which sea separates Italy from the Balkan Peninsula, with Venice at its northern end?
Adriatic Sea
The Adriatic Sea holds more than 1,300 islands and islets, nearly all of them strung along its eastern shore in Croatia.
Q 18Which sea surrounds the Isle of Man and has Anglesey, off north Wales, as its largest island?
Irish Sea
The Irish Sea separates Great Britain from its western neighbour, and the Isle of Man in the middle of it is a self-governing Crown Dependency.
Q 19Which lock-free waterway, opened in 1869, lets Mediterranean ships reach Asia without rounding Africa?
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal needs no locks because the land is flat and the sea stands at almost the same level at each end. An earlier plan was dropped over a mistaken belief that one end was 8.5 metres higher.
Q 20Which river, in which the Bible says Jesus was baptised, flows through the Sea of Galilee?
Jordan
The Jordan flows from north to south, and the Sea of Galilee it passes through is the lowest freshwater lake on Earth, more than 200 metres below sea level.
Q 24Which waterway through Istanbul is the world's narrowest strait open to international shipping?
Bosporus
The Bosporus narrows to just 700 metres, and three bridges and two tunnels now join the European and Asian halves of the city across it.
Q 25Which river burst through an irrigation canal in 1905 and accidentally created the Salton Sea?
Colorado
The Colorado poured through a broken canal gate for two years before repairs were finished. The Salton Sea it left behind is now California's largest lake.
Q 26Which country's Sea of Cortez separates a long desert peninsula from the mainland's Pacific coast?
Mexico
Mexico's Sea of Cortez, also called the Gulf of California, is thought to be one of the most ecologically diverse seas on Earth. Parts of it are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Q 27Which chasm on the edge of the Philippine Sea holds the deepest known point in any ocean?
Mariana Trench
The Mariana Trench plunges to about 10,935 metres in the Challenger Deep. That puts its floor more than 2 km farther from sea level than the summit of Mount Everest.
Q 28Which country's waters include the Java, Banda and Flores seas, set among thousands of islands?
Indonesia
Indonesia is the world's largest archipelagic state, with between 13,000 and 17,000 islands. The Java Sea at its heart is shallow, averaging just 46 metres deep.
Q 29Which country's Arctic coast is washed by the White, Kara and Laptev seas?
Russia
Russia holds the whole of the White Sea as internal waters, while the Kara and Laptev seas lie off the northern coast of Siberia.
Q 30Which polar sea crushed Ernest Shackleton's ship Endurance, whose wreck was found in 2022?
Weddell Sea
The Weddell Sea has been judged by scientists to have the clearest water of any sea. Shackleton's crew spent about 15 months trapped in its pack ice before escaping by lifeboat to Elephant Island.