Seven Seas

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"The Seven Seas" is a figurative term for all the seas of the known world.^[1] The phrase is used in reference to sailors and pirates in the arts and popular culture and can be associated with the Mediterranean Sea, the Arabian Seven Seas east of Africa and India (as told with Sinbad's seven journeys, and Captain Kidd), or is sometimes applied to the Caribbean Sea and seas around the Americas (with pirates such as Blackbeard).

The terminology of a "seven seas" with varying definitions was part of the vernacular of several peoples (as in the prior mentioned seas of Arabic literature), long before the oceans of the world became known (to those peoples). The term can now also be taken to refer to these seven oceanic bodies of water:^[2][3][4]

• the Arctic Ocean
• the North Atlantic Ocean
• the South Atlantic Ocean
• the Indian Ocean
• the North Pacific Ocean
• the South Pacific Ocean
• the Southern (or Antarctic) Ocean

The World Ocean is also known as just "the sea", the expanse emanating from any marginal sea. The International Hydrographic Organization lists over 23 distinct bodies of water called seas.^[5]

The modern practice of debating which bodies of water are the seven seas is separate from the etymology of the term. Plausible etymologies are discussed below including the Po river delta in the north Adriatic sea.^[6] The phrase’s association with the world oceans in the late nineteenth century is characterized by Rudyard Kipling’s 1896 book The Seven Seas.