West Sand (; vi, Cồn Cát Tây) is a sand cay located in the northwest of the Amphitrite Group of the

Paracel Islands The Paracel Islands, also known as the Xisha Islands () and the Hoang Sa Archipelago ( vi, Quần đảo Hoàng Sa, lit=Yellow Sand Archipelago), are a disputed archipelago in the South China Sea. The archipelago includes about 130 small coral ...

in the

South China Sea The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by the shores of South China (hence the name), in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan and northwestern Phil ...

. It is approximately west of Tree Island. West Sand is administered by the

People's Republic of 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 ...

. Being a part of the disputed Paracel Islands, the entity is also claimed by the

Republic of China (Taiwan) Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...

and

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 i ...

. In July 2014, the PRC announced an investment plan of 18 million yuan (about 2.92 million U.S. dollars) that "will be used to build desalination systems and grow trees on Xishazhou Island in the hope of turning the island into a new oasis". In April 2017, Xinhua published pictures of the current state of the forestation project, with trees going on most of the island.Beautiful scenery of south China's Sansha City
Retrieved 2017-04-27.

References

{{coord, 16, 58, 00, N, 112, 12, 00, E, display=title Paracel Islands