East China Sea
The East China Sea (Dong Hai) constitutes part of the Western Pacific. It is 1,296 kilometers long from the north to the south and 740 kilometers wide from the east to the west and covers an area of 790,000 square kilometers. In the north, it borders on the Yellow Sea (Huang Hai), and in the east it borders on Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Fujian provinces of the Chinese mainland. In the south, the East China Sea is connected to the South China Sea (Nan Hai) through the Taiwan Strait. The southern Japanese archipelago with the Ryukyu Islands constitutes the eastern border. Except for an area around the Ryukyu Islands, where depths up to 2,700 meters have been measured, the East China Sea is on a shallow continental shelf most of which is less than 200 meters deep. The Chang (Yangtze) River flows into the East China Sea, leaving huge deposits of sediment. The climate is subtropical, and monsoon winds with summer rain predominate in the area. The East China Sea is China's most important marine fishing area, and the catches of hairtail, small and large yellow croaker, and cuttlefish account for two-thirds of China's total catch. Shanghai, just south of the mouth of the Chang River, is the largest port bordering the sea and also is the center for food processing.
Further Reading
Choi, B. H. (1980) A Tidal Model of the Yellow Sea and the Eastern China Sea. Seoul: KORDI report.
Morgan, Joseph, and Mark J. Valencia, eds. (1992) Atlas for Marine Policy in East Asian Seas. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
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