What is the Tasman Sea?

The Tasman Sea lies between Australia and New Zealand, in the south-west Pacific Ocean. It is about 2,000 kilometres wide and is named after the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who in 1642 became the first European to sight Tasmania and New Zealand on the same voyage.

The Tasman Sea borders the Australian states of New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania to the west, and the North and South Islands of New Zealand to the east. To the north it merges with the Coral Sea and to the south it opens into the Southern Ocean. The Tasmanian island state and New Zealand together are sometimes called the Tasman countries because of this shared sea.

The Tasman is rough and exposed, especially in winter, when westerly storms of the Roaring Forties cross it from west to east. The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, sailed every Boxing Day, crosses the northern part of the Tasman and is famous for the 1998 race in which a deep low-pressure system struck the fleet, sinking five yachts and killing six sailors. The disaster prompted lasting changes to safety rules in offshore racing.

Two regular passenger crossings of the Tasman exist: ferries between Melbourne and Devonport in Tasmania across Bass Strait (technically a part of the Tasman), and frequent flights between Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Auckland, and Wellington, the busiest international air route in the southern hemisphere. The 1973 Australia New Zealand Closer Economic Relations agreement created a free trade area across the Tasman, and the Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement lets citizens of either country live and work in the other without a visa.