How large is the Arctic Ocean compared with the other world oceans?

The Arctic Ocean is the smallest of the world's oceans, significantly smaller in both surface area and volume than the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, and Southern oceans.12

While estimates can vary based on the inclusion of marginal seas, the Arctic Ocean covers approximately 5,440,000 square miles (14,090,000 square km). To put its size into perspective, it has only a little more than one-sixth the area of the next largest ocean, the Indian Ocean. Despite being the smallest ocean, its total area remains five times larger than that of the Mediterranean Sea, which is the largest sea.1