Alaska Ocean Statistics

Area: Approximately 8 million square miles

Average depth: 5,075 feet

Greatest known depth: 15,659 feet

Alaska Coast Line: 44,000 miles

Number of Islands: 1,800 named islands in Alaska. The Aleutian Islands extend from mainland Alaska in a six hundred-mile long chain.

Shared Boundaries: The border between Russia and the US runs through the middle of the Bering Sea. Little Diomede Island off the west coast of Alaska is only 2.5 miles from Russia's Big Diomede Island.

Alaska is surrounded by the: Arctic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Beaufort Sea, Bering Sea, and Gulf of Alaska

Parks and protections: Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge (US Fish & Wildlife Service), Alaska Seamount Marine Reserves, Aleutian Islands Biosphere Reserve (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), Aleutian Islands Coral Garden Marine Reserves, Aleutian Islands Habitat Conservation Area, Bowers Ridge Habitat Conservation Zone, Bristol Bay Crab Protection Zone, Glacier Bay and Admiralty Island Biosphere Reserve (UNESCO), Glacier Bay National Park (World Heritage Site - UNESCO), Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve (National Park Service), Gulf of Alaska Slope Habitat Conservation Areas, Kachemak Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (NOAA), NOAA Fisheries-designated Steller’s sea lion critical habitats with fishing restrictions, Pribilof Islands Habitat Conservation Area, Primnoa Coral Marine Reserves, Sitka Pinnacles Marine Reserve, and Southeast Alaska Trawl Closure

State Fish: King Salmon

The State Marine Mammal: Bowhead Whale

Commercial, subsistence, and recreational fisheries target 450 marine species.

The fishing and seafood industry is the state's largest private industry employer.

Most of America's salmon, crab, halibut, and herring come from Alaska.

Percentage of the US fish landings: 50%

Percentage of US fish exports: 30%

The region supports 25 species of marine mammals and the largest and most diverse populations of seabirds of any similarly sized region in the Northern Hemisphere.

The gray whale makes one of the longest of all mammalian migrations, averaging 10,000-14,000 miles round trip. In October, the whales begin to leave their feeding grounds in the Bering and Chukchi Seas and head south for their mating and calving lagoons in Baja California, Mexico.

The Great Circle (shipping) Route is witness to 3,000 large cargo ships transits a year

Surface currents in the northern Pacific are dominated by a clockwise, warm-water gyre (broad circular system of currents)

During the winter, sea ice forms in the Bering Sea and the seas above the Arctic Circle