List of maritime features in the Spratly Islands


This page features a series of lists of maritime features in the Spratly Islands.

Features by area

Of the hundreds of maritime features in the Spratly Islands, relatively few have land permanently above sea-level that is larger than protruding rocks. There are only 13 islands and cays with a natural area above sea-level larger than one hectare. With the exception of Swallow Reef, prior to 2014 there had been no large-scale land reclamation beyond building breakwaters and piers, and extending runways.
This changed dramatically in 2014 with the PRC embarking on large-scale reclamations of the lagoons of Johnson South Reef and Fiery Cross Reef, and other reclamations of then unknown extent at the Gaven Reefs and Cuarteron Reef. Reports of the extent of land reclaimed on Swallow Reef vary. The PRC land reclamations have continued on a total of seven sites. In 2015, Subi Reef, Hughes Reef and Mischief Reef were added. Refer to the table below for the most recently available data. In summary, there have been reclamations of very large areas at three sites by the PRC, reclamations of large areas at eight sites and reclamations of lesser areas at a number of sites. There does not appear to have been any reclamation of Philippine occupied areas. There have been small Taiwanese reclamations at Itu Aba, very small but functionally significant reclamations at six Malaysian sites, and a number small but significant reclamations at Vietnamese sites in 2016, most particularly at Spratly Island where the runway has been extended and a sheltered harbour added.
The following table contains the 16 largest "natural" features,, plus the features with significant amounts of reclaimed land:
#Featurein Atoll"Natural" AreaLocationCurrently occupied byReclaimed Area
1Itu Aba IslandTizard BankROCconvert|8|acre|ha|abbr=convert|37.20|ha|acrecoord|11|03|N|114|17|E

Features by major reef/bank, etc.

The boundaries of the Spratly Islands are not firmly defined. West-to-east, the islands range from the coastal waters of Vietnam to the east of Dangerous Ground and the Palawan Passage, and south-to-north from the coastal waters of Borneo and the southern South China Sea to the north of Dangerous Ground and the Reed Bank.
The major feature of the area is Dangerous Ground, an oblong area approximately SW-NE, at its widest, with an area of about 52,000 nm². It lies approximately between 7.5–12°N, 113–117°E, and US NGA literatureetc. seems to consider its centre as. The remainder of the Spratly Islands are mainly to the west and south of Dangerous Ground, with some features to the east.
The Spratly Islands can be roughly divided into seven sub-areas relative to Dangerous Ground:
Within these sub-areas there are a number of major reefs and banks, as well as ungrouped maritime features.
Starting in the NW, and progressing in a generally SW direction, the features include:
Sub-areaGroupVicinityContains:
NW; Northeast Cay; Shira Islet; Southwest Cay; Jenkins Patches; South Reef; Sabine Patches; Farquharson Patches; Day Shoal; Iroquois Ridge
NWTrident & Lys,
NWThitu Island; ;
NW'Subi Reef
NWLoaita BanksLankiam Cay; Loaita Cay; Loaita Nan; Loaita Island
NW', Irving Reef, West York Island
NWTizard BanksBan Than Reef/Zhongzhou Reef; Eldad Reef; Gaven Reefs; Namyit Island; Petley Reef; Sand Cay; Taiping Island/Itu Aba
NW'Western Reef, Discovery Great Reef,
W'Fiery Cross Reef,,
SWUnion BanksCollins Reef/Johnson North Reef,, Grierson Reef/Sin Cowe East Island,,,, Hughes Reef, Johnson South Reef, /Zhangxi Jiao, Lansdowne Reef, /Kennan Reef, Sin Cowe Island, Whitson Reef,,
NEReed TablemountReed Bank,,,,
NENE Dangerous Ground, Nanshan Island, Flat Island, Third Thomas Shoal,, /Hirane Shoal, /Hubo Reef,,,, /Seashore Shoal/Routh Shoal,,,,,,, /Magat Salamat Reef,
NE ;
E, Royal Captain Shoal, Half Moon Shoal,
SESE Dangerous GroundSabina Shoal,, Second Thomas Shoal, Mischief Reef, First Thomas Shoal,, Commodore Reef,,,,, Investigator Northeast Shoal
SWSW Dangerous Ground/Bittern Reef, Alison Reef, Cornwallis South Reef, Pearson Reef, Pigeon Reef, Investigator Shoal, Ardasier Reef,, Erica Reef, Mariveles Reef, Dallas Reef, Barque Canada Reef,
WLondon ReefsCentral London Reef; Cuarteron Reef; East London Reef; West London Reef
W'Spratly Island, Ladd Reef,
W'Scawfell Shoal, Charlotte Bank,, Julia Shoal, Royal Bishop Shoal
W; ; Prince of Wales Bank;
WBombay Castle ; ; ;, Bãi Ráng Chiều, bãi Ngũ Sắc, bãi Xà Cừ, bãi Vũ Tích
SAmboyna Cay; Swallow Reef; Louisa Reef
SLuconia Shoals:,,,,,,,

Features by occupier and/or claimant

A feature is occupied by a country if one of the following is true:
  • Soldiers and/or civilian citizens of a country are present in the feature, either by building structures over the feature to house the citizens or by manning a ship anchored over the feature.
  • Regularly visited by soldiers of a country, not necessarily having soldiers present in it 24 hours. These features must lie near a feature occupied by the country in the way of the first condition. Presence of structures is not necessary. This is the case of Philippine-occupied Flat Island and Lankiam Cay where soldiers stationed at Nanshan Island and Loaita Island respectively, regularly visit on a daily basis.
The effective visible distance of horizon from a 15-meter height above sea-level is. This makes features occupied by the second condition to be also labeled as "occupied" since they can be guarded far away. However, not all features within the radius can be considered as absolutely occupied. This is especially true for features that lie between and within of two or more features occupied by different countries.

Occupied features

Brunei Darussalam

Note that Louisa Reef was controlled by Brunei since 2009.
Int'l NameLocal NamesDescriptionArea Reclaimed area
Louisa Reef

Malaysia

Note that the Royal Malaysian Navy have established 5 Offshore naval stations on reclaimed land:
  1. 1983: Station Lima
  2. 1986: Station Uniform
  3. 1986: Station Mike
  4. 1999: Station Sierra
  5. 1999: Station Papa
Int'l NameLocal NamesDescriptionArea Reclaimed area
Swallow Reef/ Island