Which island reef is the largest in Nansha Islands?

Yongshu Reef is a large atoll in the Nansha Islands in Lihai, China, surpassing some of the six reefs in Nansha. 1988, China established the UNESCO Ocean Observatory-Nansha Yongshu Reef Observatory here. The administration is subordinate to Sansha City, Hainan Province, China.

Yongshu Reef is 26 kilometers long and 7.8 kilometers wide, with an area of 108 square kilometers. It has a number of relatively independent sub-reefs, the southwest of which covers an area of 4.33 square kilometers, and has established an artificial island of 2.8 square kilometers, namely the southwest island of Yongshu Reef, now referred to as Yongshu Island.

Extended data:

geographical environment

geographical position

Yongshu Reef, a coral atoll in Nansha Islands. Located at 9 degrees 37 minutes north latitude and 1 12 degrees 58 minutes east longitude, it is about 740 nautical miles from Chinese mainland and 560 nautical miles from Yulin Port of Hainan Island, belonging to Sansha City, Hainan Province. Located halfway from Taiping Island to Nanwei Island, at the intersection of South China Sea Central Route (Hong Kong to Singapore) and Nanhua Waterway, about 250 nautical miles northwest of Cam Ranh Bay, China fishermen call it "Earth House".

topography

Yongshu Reef is rectangular and divided into southwest and northeast parts. The entire reef plate is about 7.8km wide and 26km long, with an area of108km2. Shallow lake shape is not obvious, water depth14.6-40m. The reef plate is not less than 0.5- 1 m at high tide, and only a few reefs are exposed at low tide. At high tide, the reef plate is not lower than the water depth of 0.5 to 1 m, and at low tide, most of the reef plate is exposed to the water. The main reef plate of Yongshu Reef is southwest reef plate, covering an area of about 4 square kilometers.

In recent years, two bean sprout-shaped sandbars have been formed in the northeast reef plate under the influence of strong winds in the northeast, which may form grey sand islands.

Baidu Encyclopedia-Yongshu Reef