Half Moon Shoal, also known as Hasa Hasa Shoal ( tl, Kulumpol ng Hasa Hasa); Mandarin , is a

shoal In oceanography, geomorphology, and geoscience, a shoal is a natural submerged ridge, bank, or bar that consists of, or is covered by, sand or other unconsolidated material and rises from the bed of a body of water to near the surface. It ...

at the eastern edge of the

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 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 Ph ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

and the

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, Republ ...

have competing claims over the shoal. It is located close to

Northeast Investigator Shoal Northeast Investigator Shoal, also known as Dalagang Bukid Shoal ( tl, Kulumpol ng Dalagang Bukid, lit=Cluster of the Field Maiden); Mandarin ; vi, Bãi Phù Mỹ, also marked as Investigator Northeast Shoal on some nautical charts, is a shoal ...

and 100 km from

Palawan Palawan (), officially the Province of Palawan ( cyo, Probinsya i'ang Palawan; tl, Lalawigan ng Palawan), is an archipelagic province of the Philippines that is located in the region of Mimaropa. It is the largest province in the country in t ...

, Philippines.

Notable incidents

The Chinese frigate ''Dongguan'' ran aground on the shoal on 11 July 2012. On 6 May 2014, Philippine police arrested 11 Chinese fishermen allegedly poaching

sea turtle Sea turtles (superfamily Chelonioidea), sometimes called marine turtles, are reptiles of the order Testudines and of the suborder Cryptodira. The seven existing species of sea turtles are the flatback, green, hawksbill, leatherback, loggerhe ...

s on board the fishing boat, Qiongqionghai, near the Half Moon Shoal. On 29 August 2018, BRP ''Gregorio del Pillar'' ran aground at the shoal.

References

Shoals of the Spratly Islands {{Asia-geo-stub