Ocean Floor Map

Hikurangi Trench map: how deep is it?

Oceanic trench: 5,405 m down (GEBCO_2026 grid).

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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

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  • 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.

Hikurangi Trench at a glance

  • 5,405 mdeep in the grid
  • Oceanic trenchtype of feature
  • 39.74° S, 178.64° Elisted point
  • New Zealandnearest country, about 83 km
  • 32 of 39deepest of the trenches in our list

Hikurangi Trench is an oceanic trench. In the GEBCO grid it reaches 5,405 m below sea level. That figure is the deepest cell in the grid within 400 km of the centre point Wikidata gives for it (a trench is very long, and Wikidata lists a single point). The nearest country in our list is New Zealand, about 83 km from its listed point.

Open the main map at the deepest cell and tap anywhere to read the depth.

How deep is the Hikurangi Trench?

The grid figure is 5,405 m. We measured it as the deepest cell in the grid within 400 km of the centre point Wikidata gives for it (a trench is very long, and Wikidata lists a single point). The cell is at 36.53° S, 179.34° W. 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 39 trenches in our list it ranks 32th by depth. The list is the named features on Wikidata with a position at sea, so it is not every oceanic trench in the world.

About trenches

Oceanic trenches are long, narrow valleys where one tectonic plate slides beneath another. They hold the deepest water on Earth, and most lie around the edge of the Pacific Ocean.

This site lists 39 trenches, 31 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 trenches in our list

Frequently asked questions

How deep is the Hikurangi Trench?

In the GEBCO grid the figure is 5,405 m. That is the deepest cell in the grid within 400 km of the centre point Wikidata gives for it (a trench is very long, and Wikidata lists a single point).

Where is the Hikurangi Trench?

Its listed point is 39.74° S, 178.64° E, about 83 km from New Zealand. The grid's deepest cell for it is at 36.53° S, 179.34° W.

Data: depth from the GEBCO_2026 grid. Name and position from Wikidata Q3373484 (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.

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