The Yellow Sea is a shallow marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean located between mainland China and the Korean Peninsula in East Asia.

Quick Scoop: Where Is the Yellow Sea?

  • It lies to the west and north of the Korean Peninsula (North Korea and South Korea).
  • It lies to the east of mainland China, along China’s northeastern coast.
  • It is situated north of the East China Sea , forming the northwestern part of the broader East China Sea region.
  • In its far northwest, it opens into the Bohai Sea (Bo Hai), a gulf between the Liaodong and Shandong Peninsulas of China.

A bit more detail

  • The Yellow Sea stretches roughly 960 km (about 600 miles) from north to south and about 700 km (435 miles) from east to west.
  • It is relatively shallow, with an average depth around 44–120 meters (about 144–394 feet), making it one of the shallower large seas in this region.
  • Its name comes from the yellowish sediments from major rivers, especially the Yellow River in China, and windblown dust from the Gobi Desert that tint the water a golden color.

Simple mental map

If you picture East Asia on a map today: put China on the left, the Korean Peninsula on the right; the Yellow Sea is the body of water sandwiched directly between them, just above the East China Sea.

TL;DR: The Yellow Sea is between eastern China and the Korean Peninsula, just north of the East China Sea in northeastern Asia.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.