The sea of Weddell is part of the Antarctic Ocean which covers approximately 2,8 million km ².

The sea holds its name of the sailor English James Weddell which discovered it in 1823. The Scottish William S. Bruce explored it almost entirely between 1902 and 1904.

The major part of the sea is frozen permanently, covered initially by the Barrière of Filchner, then by the ice-barrier, until the island of the Elephant (near to the Shetland Islands of the South, at the end of the Péninsule the Antarctic).

It is in this sea that the boat of Ernest Shackleton, the HMS Endurance, remained prisoner of the ices.