The Paracel Islands are a group of islets and reefs in the South China Sea about 320 km (200 mi) southeast of Hǎinán and a similar distance northeast of central Vietnam. The islands, which have no indigenous population, have long been claimed by China. In the late 1800s France claimed the islands as part of its Vietnam colony and after the French withdrew from Vietnam in 1954 the French claim passed to South Vietnam. During the Vietnam War a tense situation developed in the islands, as both South Vietnam and China maneuvered for control and established military outposts. On 19 January 1974 a Chinese fleet defeated a Vietnamese fleet, and a few days later Chinese forces occupied all of the archipelago. The islands are known as the Xīshā ("West Sand") Islands (西沙群岛) in Chinese and as Hoàng Sa in Vietnamese. China administers the islands as part of Hǎinán Province. In 2012 China announced the creation of the prefectural-level city of Sānshā ("Three Sands") including the Xīshā (Paracel) Islands and (to the extent that China controls them) the Nánshā (Spratly) Islands. The population of Xīshā is now about 2000. There are many languages and dialects spoken in China, but Standard Chinese, often called Mandarin, is official. The pīnyīn system for transliterating Standard Chinese into Latin characters is now the international standard but some locations continue to be known also under the spellings of older transliteration systems. The Chinese word for a lighthouse is dēngtǎ (灯塔). In Standard Chinese jiāo (formerly chiao) is a reef or rock, jiǎo is a cape or headland, dǎo (tao) is an island; yǔ (tsu) or tuózi ("lump") is a small island, hǎi is a sea, wān is a bay, hǎixiá is a strait, hé or jiāng is a river, hékǒu ("river mouth") is an estuary, and gǎng (kang) is a harbor. Lighthouses in China are maintained by the PRC Maritime Safety Administration. The administration is organized in four regional administrations; Hǎinán is one of the four regions. The Hǎinán Maritime Safety Administration is responsible for the Xīshā lighthouses. Most of the lights of the islands are missing from international light lists, so additional information about them is needed. ARLHS numbers are from the ARLHS World List of Lights. CN numbers (where available) are the Chinese light list numbers as used by the Hǎinán regional office of MSA. Admiralty numbers are from volume P of the Admiralty List of Lights & Fog Signals. U.S. NGA List numbers are from Publication 112. So far the international light lists do not include the harbor lights of the islands.
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Yǒngxìngdǎo (Woody Island) Light, November 2005 PRC Navy photo |
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Yǒngxìngdǎo South (left) and North Breakwater Lights CNTV (state television) photo (no longer online) |
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Information available on lost lighthouses:
Notable faux lighthouses:
Adjoining pages: North: Southwestern Hainan | South: Spratly Islands | West: Southern Vietnam
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Posted March 11, 2009. Checked and revised May 4, 2023. Lighthouses: 28. Site copyright 2023 Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.