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Well, the article is about National Geographic labelling the waters south of 60 degrees South as the Southern Ocean. There isn't an international consensus abou
by squiggleblaz 5y ago
Well, the article is about National Geographic labelling the waters south of 60 degrees South as the Southern Ocean. There isn't an international consensus about whether to count the Southern Ocean as an ocean, and if so, where its boundary should be: in particular, Australia has always considered itself to be surrounded by the Indian Ocean to its west, the Southern Ocean to its south, the Pacific Ocean to the east and the seas that divide the continent from maritime southeast Asia to the north. Since this description is so natural from an Australian perspective, Australia has usually pushed back on adopting a Southern Ocean with some other definition.
So yes, probably, this is very much like the difference between North and South America vs a unitary American continent. These distinctions seem academic to some but they're about identity and the placement of a community in the world to others.