South China Sea Islands
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South China Sea Islands
The South China Sea Islands consist of over 250 islands, atolls, cays, shoals, reefs and seamounts in the South China Sea. The islands are mostly low and small, and have few inhabitants. The islands and surrounding seas are subject to overlapping territorial claims by the countries bordering the South China Sea. The South China Sea Islands constitute a distinct tropical moist broadleaf forest terrestrial ecoregion, and the South China Sea Oceanic Islands marine ecoregion. Geography The islands, shoals, and reefs are grouped into three archipelagos, plus the Zhongsha Islands (Macclesfield Bank and Scarborough Shoal). The South China Sea Islands as defined here consist of the sea's oceanic islands, and do not include the sea's continental shelf islands like Hainan and Natuna. Collectively, they have a total land surface area of less than 15 km2 at low tide. The island groups include: * The Paracel Islands, disputed between the People's Republic of China (PRC), the Republi ...
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Indomalayan Realm
The Indomalayan realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms. It extends across most of South and Southeast Asia and into the southern parts of East Asia. Also called the Oriental realm by biogeographers, Indomalaya spreads all over the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia to lowland southern China, and through Indonesia as far as Sumatra, Java, Bali, and Borneo, east of which lies the Wallace line, the realm boundary named after Alfred Russel Wallace which separates Indomalaya from Australasia. Indomalaya also includes the Philippines, lowland Taiwan, and Japan's Ryukyu Islands. Most of Indomalaya was originally covered by forest, and includes tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, with tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests predominant in much of India and parts of Southeast Asia. The tropical forests of Indomalaya are highly variable and diverse, with economically important trees, especially in the families Dipterocarpaceae and Fabaceae. Major ecol ...
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China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and borders fourteen countries by land, the most of any country in the world, tied with Russia. Covering an area of approximately , it is the world's third largest country by total land area. The country consists of 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four municipalities, and two Special Administrative Regions (Hong Kong and Macau). The national capital is Beijing, and the most populous city and financial center is Shanghai. Modern Chinese trace their origins to a cradle of civilization in the fertile basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. The semi-legendary Xia dynasty in the 21st century BCE and the well-attested Shang and Zhou dynasties developed a bureaucratic political system to serve hereditary monarchies, or dyna ...
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Walker Shoal
Walker Shoal, also known as Manbu Ansha () is a shoal in the Macclesfield Bank in the South China Sea. There are no islands, no land above sea-level, no settlements, and no inhabitants in the region. The least depth shown on the nautical chart is . Although the area is claimed by the PRC and the ROC, no country has control of the region. The PRC claim that it is administered as part of the Zhongsha Dao and Jiao Neighborhood Committee township-level division, in the county-level division of Zhongsha District of Sansha prefecture-level city, in Hainan Hainan (, ; ) is the smallest and southernmost province of the People's Republic of China (PRC), consisting of various islands in the South China Sea. , the largest and most populous island in China,The island of Taiwan, which is slightly l ... province. However, it is not clear where the seat of this committee is. An Xinhuanet.com story dated 27 June 2013 stated that "a maritime fishery resource breeding and research ...
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Height Above Sea Level
Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as ''orthometric heights''. The combination of unit of measurement and the physical quantity (height) is called "metres above mean sea level" in the metric system, while in United States customary and imperial units it would be called "feet above mean sea level". Mean sea levels are affected by climate change and other factors and change over time. For this and other reasons, recorded measurements of elevation above sea level at a reference time in history might differ from the actual elevation of a given location over sea level at a given moment. Uses Metres above sea level is the standard measurement of the elevation or altitude of: * Geographic locations such as towns, mountains and other landmarks. * The top of buildings and other structures. * Flying objects such ...
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Zhongzhou Reef
Zhongzhou Reef also known as Ban Than Reef and Centre Cay ( Mandarin ; vi, Bãi Bàn Than) is a small coral reef on the north edge of the Tizard Bank in the Spratly Islands, South China Sea under administration by the Republic of China (Taiwan) . It lies east of Taiwan-administered Taiping Island (Itu Aba), west of Vietnam-administered Sand Cay, and has an exposed area of approximately during high tide, and during low tide. It consists of an accumulation of seashells, sand, coral reefs and debris which forms a circular coral reef plate, surrounding the reef under the water, with a diameter of approximately . The reef is also claimed by the People's Republic of China, the Philippines, and Vietnam. As many as 51 species of migratory birds inhabit the reef for short stays. The surrounding waters contain a rich marine ecosystem with plentiful staghorn coral. Shellfish species such as '' Harpago chiragra'' and ''Cassis cornuta'' can be found on the reef, and the surrounding wate ...
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Taiping Island
Taiping Island, also known as Itu Aba, and also known by various other names, is the largest of the naturally occurring Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. The island is elliptical in shape being in length and in width, with an area of . It is located on the northern edge of the Tizard Bank (Zheng He Reefs; 鄭和群礁). The runway of the Taiping Island Airport is easily the most prominent feature on the island, running its entire length. The island is administered by the Taiwan, Republic of China (Taiwan), as part of Cijin District, Kaohsiung, Cijin, Kaohsiung. It is also claimed by the China, People's Republic of China (PRC), the Philippines and Vietnam. In 2016, in the ruling by an arbitral tribunal in the Intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Permanent Court of Arbitration, in the case brought by the Philippines vs. China, Philippines against China, the tribunal classified Itu Aba as a "rock" under United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) ( ...
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James Shoal
James Shoal is an underwater shoal (bank) in the South China Sea, with a depth of below the surface of the sea, located about off the Borneo coast of Malaysia. It is claimed by Malaysia, the People's Republic of China, and the Republic of China (Taiwan). The shoal and its surrounds are administered by Malaysia. Name James Shoal is also called Beting Serupai (Malaysia) and Zengmu Reef / Zengmu Shoal / Tseng-mu An-sha () ( China mainland and Taiwan). History James Shoal, along with its two nearby features, Parsons’ Shoal (Betting Tugau, 八仙暗沙, 9.35 km due south) and Lydie Shoal (Betting Mukah, 立地暗沙, 27.94 km west-southwest), were recognised by British surveyors in the early 19th Century via many of its surveys. James Shoal first appeared on the British Admiralty Chart in the 1870s. In 1933 a government committee of the Republic of China gave Chinese names to many features in the South China Sea. These were mainly translations or transliterations of ...
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Brunei
Brunei ( , ), formally Brunei Darussalam ( ms, Negara Brunei Darussalam, Jawi alphabet, Jawi: , ), is a country located on the north coast of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Apart from its South China Sea coast, it is completely surrounded by the Malaysian state of Sarawak. It is separated into two parts by the Sarawak district of Limbang District, Limbang. Brunei is the only sovereign state entirely on Borneo; the remainder of the island is divided between Malaysia and Indonesia. , its population was 460,345, of whom about 100,000 live in the Capital city, capital and largest city, Bandar Seri Begawan. The government of Brunei, government is an absolute monarchy ruled by its Sultan of Brunei, Sultan, entitled the Yang di-Pertuan Negara, Yang di-Pertuan, and implements a combination of English common law and sharia law, as well as general Islamic practices. At the peak of the Bruneian Empire, Bolkiah, Sultan Bolkiah (reigned 1485–1528) is claimed to have had contro ...
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Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republika sang Filipinas * ibg, Republika nat Filipinas * ilo, Republika ti Filipinas * ivv, Republika nu Filipinas * pam, Republika ning Filipinas * krj, Republika kang Pilipinas * mdh, Republika nu Pilipinas * mrw, Republika a Pilipinas * pag, Republika na Filipinas * xsb, Republika nin Pilipinas * sgd, Republika nan Pilipinas * tgl, Republika ng Pilipinas * tsg, Republika sin Pilipinas * war, Republika han Pilipinas * yka, Republika si Pilipinas In the recognized optional languages of the Philippines: * es, República de las Filipinas * ar, جمهورية الفلبين, Jumhūriyyat al-Filibbīn is an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. It is situated in the western Pacific Ocean and consists of around 7,641 islands t ...
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Malaysia
Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two regions: Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo's East Malaysia. Peninsular Malaysia shares a land and maritime Malaysia–Thailand border, border with Thailand and Maritime boundary, maritime borders with Singapore, Vietnam, and Indonesia. East Malaysia shares land and maritime borders with Brunei and Indonesia, and a maritime border with the Philippines and Vietnam. Kuala Lumpur is the national capital, the country's largest city, and the seat of the Parliament of Malaysia, legislative branch of the Government of Malaysia, federal government. The nearby Planned community#Planned capitals, planned capital of Putrajaya is the administrative capital, which represents the seat of both the Government of Malaysia#Executive, executive branch (the Cabine ...
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Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making it the world's sixteenth-most populous country. Vietnam borders China to the north, and Laos and Cambodia to the west. It shares maritime borders with Thailand through the Gulf of Thailand, and the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia through the South China Sea. Its capital is Hanoi and its largest city is Ho Chi Minh City (commonly known as Saigon). Vietnam was inhabited by the Paleolithic age, with states established in the first millennium BC on the Red River Delta in modern-day northern Vietnam. The Han dynasty annexed Northern and Central Vietnam under Chinese rule from 111 BC, until the first dynasty emerged in 939. Successive monarchical dynasties absorbed Chinese influences through Confucianism and Buddhism, and expanded ...
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Spratly Islands
The Spratly Islands ( fil, Kapuluan ng Kalayaan; zh, c=南沙群島/南沙群岛, s=, t=, p=Nánshā Qúndǎo; Malay, id, Kepulauan Spratly; vi, Quần đảo Trường Sa) are a disputed archipelago in the South China Sea. Composed of islands, islets, cays, and more than 100 reefs, sometimes grouped in submerged old atolls, the archipelago lies off the coasts of the Philippines, Malaysia, and southern Vietnam. Named after the 19th-century British whaling captain Richard Spratly who sighted Spratly Island in 1843, the islands contain less than of naturally occurring land area, which is spread over an area of more than . The Spratly Islands are one of the major archipelagos in the South China Sea which complicate governance and economics in this part of Southeast Asia due to their location in strategic shipping lanes. The islands are largely uninhabited, but offer rich fishing grounds and may contain significant oil and natural gas reserves,Owen, N. A. and C. H. Schofi ...
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