Yellow Sea

The extent of the great gulph called Whang Hay, or the Yellow Sea, being at preſent unknown, it may be left to the Commander’s diſcretion, to proceed up it as far as he may think proper: he muſt be cautious, however, not to entangle himſelf in it too far, left he ſhould not have ſufficient time left for the proſecution of the remainder of his voyage.

1784, James Cook, James King, Cook's Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, volume IV, London: John Stockdale, page 248

It was New Year's Eve, and the eighteen American officials who had hurriedly gathered in the State Department Operations Room on 31 December 1970, were still sharply divided after four hours of discussion.¹ The issue was what, if anything, the Seventh Fleet should do in the event of Chinese naval action against the U.S. seismic survey vessels then beginning to explore for oil in disputed waters of the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, and the Yellow Sea.

1977, Selig S. Harrison, China, Oil and Asia: Conflict Ahead?, New York: Columbia University Press, →ISBN, page 1

Official Chinese reports indicate that since 1966, large-scale oil prospecting has been going on in many parts of China. The most promising discovery, however, lies offshore on the continental shelf stretching from the Huang Hai between Korea and the Shandong Peninsula to as far as the Xisha and Nansha islands in the South China Sea.

[1982, Chu-yuan Cheng, “Geographical Setting and Natural Endowment”, in China's Economic Development: Growth and Structural Change, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 7

The combined East China Sea and Yellow Sea (ECS/YS) covers roughly 1,250,000 km² and is one of the most developed continental shelf areas in the world (Yanagi and Takahashi, 1993). While the Yellow Sea (YS) covers a relatively large area, it is quite shallow reaching a maximum depth of about 140 m (Figure 1). The water depth over most of the area is less than 50 m.

1998, Akira Kuninaka, AIR-SEA INTERACTIONS AND WATER MASS STRUCTURE OF THE EAST CHINA SEA AND YELLOW SEA, Naval Postgraduate School, page 1