WHY THE YELLOW SEA IS CALLED THE “YELLOW SEA”?

WHY THE YELLOW SEA IS CALLED THE “YELLOW SEA”?

PROF WAQAR HUSSAIN

        Yellow Sea, Chinese Huang Hai, is an arm of the Pacific Ocean. It is lying between mainland China on the west and north and the Korean peninsula on the east. It is situated to the north of the East China Sea.  It measures about 960 km from north to south and about 700 km from east to west. 

The area of the Yellow Sea 380,000 km²); its mean depth is 144 ft.

There are many hypotheses for its name.

1) The sand particles flying from the sand storm of Gobi Desert and fall into it that turn the surface of the 

water golden yellow.

2) Many major Chinese rivers like the Bohai Sea, Hai He River that contain golden colour silt fall into it. This golden silt changes the colour of the water to paler one.

3) Turks associated directions with the colors as: 

·      Black (Kara) is associated with North (Kuzey); Before Turkish conquest of Anatolia and Middle East, the Black Sea had known by Greeks as Pontos Euxeinos. 

·      White (Ak) is associated with West (Batı); Aegean and Mediterranean Seas as The White Sea (Akdeniz)

·      Red (Kızıl) is associated with South (Güney); the sea between Arabian Peninsula and Egypt as The Red Sea (Kızıldeniz)

·      Blue (Mavi in modern Turkish, Kök in old Turkish) is associated with East (Doğu) and

·      Yellow (Sarı) is associated with the Center.

                 Probably the Chinese used the same system of colours and directions and called this centrally located sea as the Yellow Sea. (Sarı Deniz in Turkish)