Scarborough Shoal:
China recently released geographic coordinates marking baselines around the contested Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea.
- The Scarborough Shoal (also known in English as the Scarborough Reef) is an oceanic coral atoll that developed on top of a seamount into a triangle shape in the eastern part of the South China Sea.
- It is located some 220 kilometers west of the Philippines’ Island of Luzon.
- It is the largest atoll in the South China Sea, submerged at high tide with few rocks above sea level.
- This atoll extends 18 km along its northwest-southeast axis and reaches 10 km along its northeast-southwest axis.
- The deep waters around the shoal make it a productive fishing area, rich in marine life, and the lagoon also contains many commercially valuable shellfish and sea cucumbers.
- The shoal is the source of an ongoing and, so far, unresolved dispute between the People’s Republic of China and the Philippines, with both countries claiming that the shoal lies within their territory and saying they have exclusive rights to access its waters.
