location of the southern ocean on a map
Southern Ocean The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean[1] or the Austral Ocean,[2][note 4] comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica.[6] 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.[7] This ocean zone is where cold, northward flowing waters from the Antarctic mix with warmer subantarctic waters.
Pacific Ocean Though the peoples of Asia and Oceania have traveled the Pacific Ocean since prehistoric times, the eastern Pacific was first sighted by Europeans in the early 16th century when Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama in 1513 and discovered the great "southern sea" which he named Mar del Sur (in Spanish). The ocean's current name was coined by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the Spanish circumnavigation of the world in 1521, as he encountered favorable winds on reaching the ocean. He called it Mar Pacífico, which in both Portuguese and Spanish means "peaceful sea".[4]