Ocean Floor Map

Challenger Plateau map

Oceanic plateau: 500 m down (GEBCO_2026 grid).

Tap or scroll to load the interactive map

Sea level todayDrag the slider to lower the sea and see the land that would appear.

Sea level in metres below today’s. A simple bathtub model: it lowers the sea everywhere by the same amount and does not simulate how the water would really drain.

Key

Sea depth

  • Deeper than 6,000 m
  • 4,000 to 6,000 m
  • 2,000 to 4,000 m
  • 1,000 to 2,000 m
  • 200 to 1,000 m
  • Shallower than 200 m (the continental shelf)

Land height

  • Land up to 500 m
  • 500 to 2,000 m
  • Above 2,000 m

Drain the oceans

  • Seabed exposed when the sea is lowered A dashed white line marks today’s coast.

How to read the map. Darker blue is deeper water. Tap anywhere to see how deep the sea is there, or how high the land is, and the nearest named undersea feature. Depths come from the GEBCO_2026 grid, which in most of the deep ocean is predicted from satellite measurements of the sea surface rather than surveyed by ship, and the map’s tiles are coarser than the grid, so narrow trenches read shallower on the map than their true depth. Not for navigation.

Challenger Plateau at a glance

  • 500 mdeep in the grid
  • Oceanic plateautype of feature
  • 38.50° S, 168.60° Elisted point
  • New Zealandnearest country, about 401 km
  • 20 of 25deepest of the oceanic plateaus in our list

Challenger Plateau is an oceanic plateau. In the GEBCO grid it reaches 500 m below sea level. That figure is the depth in the grid at its listed centre point, so a typical depth for the feature, not its deepest or shallowest point. The nearest country in our list is New Zealand, about 401 km from its listed point.

Open the main map at its listed point and tap anywhere to read the depth.

How deep is the Challenger Plateau?

The grid figure is 500 m. We measured it as the depth in the grid at its listed centre point, so a typical depth for the feature, not its deepest or shallowest point. The GEBCO_2026 grid has a value every 15 arc-seconds, about 460 m at the equator, so a very narrow feature can be a little deeper or shallower in reality than any grid cell shows.

Wikidata has no depth figure for this feature, so the grid is our only source for it.

Among the 25 oceanic plateaus in our list it ranks 20th by depth. The list is the named features on Wikidata with a position at sea, so it is not every oceanic plateau in the world.

About oceanic plateaus

An oceanic plateau is a broad, raised area of the seabed that stands well above the deep ocean floor around it.

This site lists 25 oceanic plateaus, 19 of them with their own indexed page. See all undersea features.

Nearby undersea features

Distances are between listed points. A long feature such as a trench or ridge has a single listed point on Wikidata.

The deepest oceanic plateaus in our list

Frequently asked questions

How deep is the Challenger Plateau?

In the GEBCO grid the figure is 500 m. That is the depth in the grid at its listed centre point, so a typical depth for the feature, not its deepest or shallowest point.

Where is the Challenger Plateau?

Its listed point is 38.50° S, 168.60° E, about 401 km from New Zealand.

Data: depth from the GEBCO_2026 grid. Name and position from Wikidata Q2561301 (CC0); Wikipedia article. See data sources and licences. The GEBCO Grid should NOT be used for navigation or for any other purpose involving safety at sea.

All undersea features · All oceans and seas · Drain the oceans

Embed this map

Copy this code into your web page. It is free to use. Please keep the link under the map, as it is how people find where the map comes from.