Spratlys > Islands Names

1935 Names of South China Sea Islands

1. Historical background on the 1935 South China Sea Names:

Following Paragraphs are from the following paper:

• Jinming, Li and Li Dexia. The Dotted Line on the Chinese Map of the South China Sea: A Note. Ocean Development & International Law, 34:287–295, 2003.
  - Provides details of the history of the dotted line marking Chinese claims in the South China Sea since 1947 and presents the current opinions of scholars and others on the issue. Keywords: cartography, Chinese territory.

"In January 1930 the Chinese government promulgated The Inspection
Regulations of Land and Water Maps (Shuilu ditu shencha tiaoli). Consultation
between the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Foreign Ministry, the Marine Ministry, the
Ministry of Education, and the Committee of Mongolia and Tibet led to an extension
and revision of the above regulations in September 1931 with The Revised Inspection
Regulations of Land and Water Maps (Xiuzheng shuilu ditu shencha tiaoli). Following
further consultations, a Land and Water Maps Inspection Committee, whose members
were representatives sent by the relevant institutions and departments, was formed and
started work on June 7, 1933.

The Land and Water Maps Inspection Committee made significant contributions to
the defense of China’s sovereignty in the South China Sea. At the 25th meeting held on
December 21, 1934, the Committee examined and approved both Chinese and English
names for all of the Chinese islands and reefs in the South China Sea. In the first issue
of the Committee’s journal published in January 1935, they listed the names of 132
islands, reefs, and low tide elevations in the South China Sea, of which 28 were in the
Paracel Islands archipelago and 96 in the Spratly Islands archipelago.1 At the 29th meeting
held on March 12, 1935, based on the various questions raised by the Ya Xin Di
Xueshe, the Committee stipulated that “except on the large-scale national administrative
maps of China that should delineate the Pratas Islands, the Paracel Islands, the Macclesfield
Bank and the Spratly Islands, other maps need not mark or note these islands if the
locations of the islands were beyond the extent of the maps.”2[See Shuilu ditu shencha weiyuanhui huikan [Journal of Land and Water Maps Inspection
Committee], Vol. 3 (September 1935): 79–80.]

The Map of Chinese Islands in the South China Sea (Zhongguo nanhai daoyu tu)
published by the Committee in April 1935 declared that China’s southernmost boundary
should reach the 4º northern latitude. Thus the James Shoal was marked as being within
the Chinese boundary. On the second map, The Map of Chinese Domain in the South
China Sea (Haijiang nan zhan hou zhi zhongguo quantu) in the book The New Map of
Chinese Construction (Zhongguo jianshe xin ditu), edited by Bai Meichu in 1936, the
Pratas Islands, the Paracel Islands, the Macclesfield Bank, and the Spratly Islands were
drawn as being within Chinese territory in the South China Sea. The boundaries of the
islands were marked by national boundary lines showing that these islands belong to
China. The southernmost national boundary line of the South China Sea Islands area
was indicated as being the 4º northern latitude. The James Shoal was indicated as being
within the national boundary. In the annotation of the map, the mapmaker states:

The six isles occupied by France in July 1933 together with the Macclesfield
Bank and the Spratly Islands measured afterwards by the Nautical Bureau of
the Marine were the living places of Chinese fishermen. The sovereignty, of
course, belonged to China. In April 1935, the Chinese Central Inspection
Committee of Land and Water Maps issued The Map of Chinese Islands in
the South China Sea (Zhongguo nanhai daoyu tu) in its journal. The southern
coastal areas extended to the James Shoal in the Spratly Islands, which
was just at the 4º northern latitude. This was China’s southernmost coastal
boundary in the South China Sea.3[Han Zhenhua (ed.), Woguo nanhai zhudao shiliao huibian [The Compilation of Historic
Materials on the South China Sea Islands], (the Oriental Publishing House, 1988), 360.]

2. The following list shows both the 1947 Revised Names (at the top part of each page) and the 1935 Names (at the bottom part of each page). Besides that, the list below also gives the meanings of the names given to these South China Sea islands.

• 政资约:《南海诸岛地理志略》,1947 (Zheng Ziyue, Nanhai Zhudao Dili Zhilue, [South China Sea Islands Geological Records/Annals], 1947)
  

3. Please view the Map of Chinese Islands in the South China Sea (Zhongguo nanhai daoyu tu) published in 1935 under Spratly Islands Maps.