London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Sep 18, 2025

There Are Five Oceans on Earth Now, National Geographic Says

There Are Five Oceans on Earth Now, National Geographic Says

Six continents, four oceans… that’s what we all know from school and easy quiz questions, but some say there are five bodies of water on Earth. Will people happily accept this or will there be some backlash, like when Pluto was downgraded from a planet to a dwarf planet in 2006.

The National Geographic Society says it's time to recognise that there are five oceans on our planet.

The Southern Ocean, a body of icy water encircling Antarctica, will now officially join the Arctic, Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans on the maps made by the society – although the move is not recognised by everyone.

The decision was made in the wake of World Oceans Day celebrations on 8 June to reflect on what scientists, explorers, and geographers suspected for a long time – the waters around Antarctica are unique and cannot simply be thought of as extensions of the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans.


“The Southern Ocean has long been recognised by scientists, but because there was never agreement internationally, we never officially recognised it,” says National Geographic Society Geographer Alex Tait, who is tasked with keeping the Map Policy up-to-date.

Tait says that the society, which has been making maps since 1915, “always labelled it” but “slightly differently” than other oceans.

“This change was taking the last step and saying we want to recognise it because of its ecological separation,” the geographer says.

Defined by Current, Not Continents


Scientists are confident that the waters around Antarctica “form a distinct ecological region” which are defined by their unique Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC). Inside the current waters are colder and less salty, they say. The dense waters also help store carbon deep in the ocean, playing a huge role in how our planet’s climate and global circulation system work.

“Anyone who has been there will struggle to explain what's so mesmerising about it, but they'll all agree that the glaciers are bluer, the air colder, the mountains more intimidating, and the landscapes more captivating than anywhere else you can go,” says Seth Sykora-Bodie, a National Geographic explorer and marine scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).


The National Geographic admits they have decided to update its list of oceans “without an official determination” from the International Hydrographic Organisation (IHO), an intergovernmental body that has been working with the UN to chart waters worldwide. The IHO simply couldn’t agree on the extent of this fifth ocean region and its name (although they did recognise the Southern Ocean in 1937 only to backtrack on this decision 16 years later).

Meanwhile, the US Board on Geographic Names has used the designation since 1999, and the NOAA recognised the Southern Ocean this February.

Peculiarly enough, the change has already been reflected in Google Maps – although it seems that this has been going on for several years now, according to many surprised social media users.




Tait, who has been long pushing for the change, as he heard researchers and the media increasingly referring for the term Southern Ocean, is delighted: “It’s sort of geographic nerdiness in some ways,” he says.

If the alteration is finally recognised by everyone (although it’s not clear who has to make the final call), those compiling textbooks, maps, school and university programmes will have a lot of work to do.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
×