The Sparidae is a family of fish, included in the order Perciformes. The fish of the family are commonly called sea breams and porgies (North America). The sheepshead, scup, and red sea bream are species in this family. They are found in shallow temperate and tropical waters and are bottom-dwelling carnivores. Most species possess grinding, molar-like teeth. Some of the species, such as Polysteganus undulosus, have been subject to overfishing, or exploitation beyond sustainable recovery.

The family Sparidae contains 125 species in 37 genera and is classified here according to Fishbase.

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The most celebrated of the breams in cookery are the gilt-head bream and the common dentex.

A sea generally refers to a large body of salt water, but the term is used in other contexts as well. Most commonly, it means a large expanse of saline water connected with an ocean, and is commonly used as a synonym for ocean. It is also used sometimes to describe a large saline lake that lacks a natural outlet, such as the Caspian Sea.

Arctic (belonging to the Arctic Ocean) and Antarctic (Southern Ocean) seas, as well as some other seas freeze in winter. This occurs below the freezing point of pure water, at about -1.8 °C (28.8 °F). Frozen salt water becomes sea ice.

Humans navigated seas from antiquity. Ancient Egyptians and Phoenicians navigated the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Hannu was the first see explorer of whom there is any information. He sailed along the Red Sea and further to the Arabian Peninsula and the African Coast around 2750 BC. In the 1st millennium BC, Phoenicians and Greeks established colonies all over the Mediterranean, including its outlets like the Black Sea. The seas along the eastern and the southern Asian coast were used by Arabs and Chinese for navigation, and the North Sea and the Baltic Sea were known to Europeans in Roman times. Other seas were not used for navigation in the antiquity and were actually discovered.

The common bream, freshwater bream, bream, bronze bream or carp bream,Abramis brama, is a European species of freshwater fish in the family Cyprinidae.

The common bream lives in ponds, lakes and canals, and in slow-flowing rivers.

It is now considered to be the only species in its genus.

The common bream's home range is Europe north of the Alps and Pyrenees, as well as the Balkans. It is found as far east as the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea, and the Aral Sea.

The bream is usually 30 to 55 centimetres (12 to 22 in) long, though some specimens of 75 centimetres (30 in) have been recorded; it usually weighs 2 to 4 kilograms (4.4 to 8.8 lb).

It has a laterally flattened and high-backed body and a slightly undershot mouth. It is a silvery grey colour,^{[citation needed]} though older fish can be bronze-coloured especially in clear waters. The fins are greyish to black, but never reddish.

The common bream can easily be confused with the silver or white bream (Blicca bjoerkna), in particular at the younger stages (see picture). The most reliable method of distinguishing these species is by counting the scales in a straight line downwards from the first ray of the dorsal fin to the lateral line. Silver bream has fewer than ten rows of scales, common bream has eleven or more. At the adult stage the reddish tint of the pectoral fin of the silver bream is diagnostic. Like other Cyprinidae, common bream can easily hybridise with other species, and hybrids with roach (Rutilus rutilus) can be very difficult to distinguish from pure-bred bream.