China Sea is the name of two seas of the Pacific Ocean along the east coast of Asia. Both seas and some of their islands were scenes of important battles during World War II. These conflicts included the Battle of Okinawa in 1945. The East China Sea (area 482,300 square miles, or 1,249,200 square kilometers) extends north from Taiwan to Japan and the Koreas. Shanghai, China, and Nagasaki, Japan, are the main ports of the sea.
The South China Sea (area 1,300,000 square miles, or 3,370,000 square kilometers) is connected to the East China Sea by the Taiwan Strait. The South China Sea includes the Gulf of Tonkin and Gulf of Thailand on the west and Manila Bay on the east. Violent tropical storms called typhoons sweep over the sea. The Mekong and Xi Jiang rivers empty into the sea, and the seaports of Guangzhou (also called Canton) and Hong Kong, China; Singapore; and Manila, in the Philippines, lie along its coasts.
