country vries strait
The Sea of Okhotsk is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean , lying between the Kamchatka Peninsula on the east , the Kuril Islands on the southeast , the island of Hokkaido to the south , the island of Sakhalin along the west , and a long stretch of eastern Siberian coast ( the Shantar Sea ) along the west and north . The northeast corner is the Shelikhov Gulf . The sea is named after Okhotsk , the first Russian settlement in the Far East . Sakhalin is a large Russian island in the North Pacific Ocean , lying between 45 ° 50 ' and 54 ° 24 ' N . It is ___MASK7___ ' s largest island , and is administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast . Sakhalin , which is about one fifth the size of Japan , is just off the east coast of ___MASK7___ , and just north of Japan . Okhotsk is an urban locality ( a work settlement ) and the administrative center of Okhotsky District of Khabarovsk Krai , ___MASK7___ , located at the mouth of the Okhota River on the Sea of Okhotsk . Population : The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the ___MASK12___ ' s five major oceans . The International Hydrographic Organization ( IHO ) recognizes it as an ocean , although some oceanographers call it the Arctic Mediterranean Sea or simply the Arctic Sea , classifying it a mediterranean sea or an estuary of the ___MASK30___ . Alternatively , the Arctic Ocean can be seen as the northernmost part of the all - encompassing World Ocean . Earth , otherwise known as the ___MASK12___ , is the third planet from the Sun and the only object in the Universe known to harbor life . It is the densest planet in the Solar System and the largest of the four terrestrial planets . Iturup ( Ainu :  , " Etuworop - sir " " Etorofu - t ") is one of the Kuril Islands . It was formerly known as " Staten Island ". It is the largest and northernmost island in the southern Kurils , which are disputed between ___MASK99___ and ___MASK7___ . Siberia is an extensive geographical region , and by the broadest definition is also known as North Asia . Siberia has historically been a part of ___MASK7___ since the 17th century . The Southern Ocean , also known as the ___MASK6___ Ocean or the Austral Ocean , comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean , generally taken to be south of 60 ° S latitude and encircling ___MASK90___ . As such , it is regarded as the fourth - largest of the five principal oceanic divisions : smaller than the Pacific , Atlantic , and Indian Oceans but larger than the Arctic Ocean . This ocean zone is where cold , northward flowing waters from the ___MASK6___ mix with warmer subantarctic waters . The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth ' s oceanic divisions . It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean ( or , depending on definition , to ___MASK90___ ) in the south and is bounded by Asia and Australia in the west and the Americas in the east . An ocean ( the sea of classical antiquity ) is a body of saline water that composes much of a planet ' s hydrosphere . On Earth , an ocean is one of the major conventional divisions of the ___MASK12___ Ocean , which covers almost 71 % of its surface . These are , in descending order by area , the Pacific , Atlantic , Indian , Southern ( ___MASK6___ ), and Arctic Oceans . The word " sea " is often used interchangeably with " ocean " in American English but , strictly speaking , a sea is a body of saline water ( generally a division of the world ocean ) partly or fully enclosed by land . ___MASK28___ , officially the Commonwealth of ___MASK28___ , is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent , the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands . It is the world ' s sixth - largest country by total area . The neighbouring countries are ___MASK42___ , ___MASK38___ and East Timor to the north ; the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north - east ; and New Zealand to the south - east . ___MASK28___ ' s capital is Canberra , and its largest urban area is Sydney . The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands (, or Japanese : or ), in ___MASK7___ ' s Sakhalin Oblast region , form a volcanic archipelago that stretches approximately northeast from Hokkaido , Japan , to Kamchatka , ___MASK7___ , separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the North Pacific Ocean . There are 56 islands and many minor rocks . It consists of Greater Kuril Ridge and Lesser Kuril Ridge . The total land area is and the total population is 19 , 434 . The Americas , also collectively called America , encompass the totality of the continents of North America and South America . Together they make up most of Earth ' s western hemisphere and comprise the " New ___MASK12___ ". The ___MASK6___ ( US English , UK English or and or ) is a polar region , specifically the region around the Earth ' s South Pole , opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole . The ___MASK6___ comprises in the strict sense the continent of ___MASK90___ and the island territories located on the ___MASK6___ Plate . In a broader sense the ___MASK6___ region include the ice shelves , waters , and island territories in the Southern Ocean situated south of the ___MASK6___ Convergence , a zone approximately wide varying in latitude seasonally . The region covers some 20 % of the Southern Hemisphere , of which 5 . 5 % ( 14 million km ) is the surface area of the ___MASK6___ continent itself . All of the land and ice shelves south of 60 ° S latitude are administrated under the ___MASK6___ Treaty System . In a biogeographic sense , the ___MASK6___ ecozone is one of eight ecozones of the Earth ' s land surface . An island or isle is any piece of sub - continental land that is surrounded by water . Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets , skerries , cays or keys . An island in a river or a lake island may be called an eyot or ait , and a small island off the coast may be called a holm . A grouping of geographically or geologically related islands is called an archipelago , e . g . the ___MASK3___ . Vries Strait or Miyabe Line is a strait between two main islands of the Kurils . It is located between the northeastern end of the island of Iturup and the southwestern headland of Urup Island , connecting the Sea of Okhotsk on the west with the Pacific Ocean on the east . It has a width of 42 km . The strait is named after Dutch explorer Maarten Gerritsz Vries , the first recorded European to explore the area in 1643 . The Arctic ( or ) is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth . The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean , adjacent seas , and parts of Alaska ( ___MASK48___ ), ___MASK36___ , Finland , Greenland ( Denmark ), Iceland , Norway , ___MASK7___ , and Sweden . Land within the Arctic region has seasonally varying snow and ice cover , with predominantly treeless permafrost - containing tundra . Arctic seas contain seasonal sea ice in many places . ___MASK7___ ( from the  Rus '), also officially known as the Russian Federation , is a country in Eurasia . At , ___MASK7___ is the largest country in the world by surface area , covering more than one - eighth of the Earth ' s inhabited land area , and the ninth most populous , with over 140 million people at the end of March 2016 . The European western part of the country is much more populated and urbanised than the eastern , about 77 % of the population live in European ___MASK7___ . ___MASK7___ ' s capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world , other major urban centers include Saint Petersburg , Novosibirsk , Yekaterinburg , Nizhny Novgorod and Samara . ___MASK90___ ( US English , UK English or ) is Earth ' s southernmost continent . It contains the geographic South Pole and is situated in the Antarctic region of the Southern Hemisphere , almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle , and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean . At , it is the fifth - largest continent . For comparison , ___MASK90___ is nearly twice the size of Australia . About 98 % of ___MASK90___ is covered by ice that averages in thickness , which extends to all but the northernmost reaches of the Antarctic Peninsula . Shelikhov Gulf is a large gulf off the northwestern coast of Kamchatka , ___MASK7___ . It is located in the northeastern corner of the Sea of Okhotsk and it branches into two main arms , Gizhigin Bay to the west and Penzhin Bay to the east . Its southwest corner is formed by the P ' yagin Peninsula , Yam Gulf and the Yamsky Islands .