Recent News on the Sea of Japan (Nuclear-armed North Korea fired four ballistic missiles east of the peninsula on March 6, with Japan saying three of them landed in its waters.)

• The Sea of Japan is a marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, and the Asian mainland.
• The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean.
• It is bordered by Japan, North Korea, Russia and South Korea. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it has almost no tides due to its nearly complete enclosure from the Pacific Ocean.
• This isolation also reflects in the fauna species and in the water salinity, which is lower than in the ocean.
• The sea has no large islands, bays or capes.
• Its water balance is mostly determined by the inflow and outflow through the straits connecting it to the neighboring seas and Pacific Ocean.
• Few rivers discharge into the sea and their total contribution to the water exchange is within 1%.
• The seawater has an elevated concentration of dissolved oxygen that results in high biological productivity.
• Therefore, fishing is the dominant economic activity in the region.
• The intensity of shipments across the sea has been moderate owing to political issues, but it is steadily increasing as a result of the growth of East Asian economies.
• The Korea Strait is a sea passage between Japan and South Korea, connecting the East China Sea and the Sea of Japan in the northwest Pacific Ocean.
• The strait is split by the Tsushima Island into the western channel and the Tsushima Strait (eastern channel).

Source: Wikipedia