Taiping Island

Taiping Island, also known as Itu Aba, and various other names, is the largest of the naturally occurring Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. The island is elliptical in shape being in length and in width, with an area of . It is located on the northern edge of the Tizard Bank (Zheng He Reefs; 鄭和群礁). The runway of the Taiping Island Airport is easily the most prominent feature on the island, running its entire length. The island is administered by the Republic of China (Taiwan), as part of Cijin, Kaohsiung. It is also claimed by the People's Republic of China (PRC), the Philippines and Vietnam. In 2016, in the ruling by an arbitral tribunal in the intergovernmental Permanent Court of Arbitration, in the case brought by the Philippines against China, the tribunal classified Itu Aba as a "rock" under United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) (and therefore not entitled to a 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and continental shelf). Both Taiwan (ROC) and PRC/China rejected this ruling. The adjacent unpopulated Zhongzhou Reef (Ban Than Reef) is also under the control of Taiwan. In 1946, the Republic of China named it Taiping Island (Mandarin ) in honor of a Nationalist Chinese Navy warship, (太平號), which sailed to the island when Japan surrendered after the Second World War. The name Taiping Island is used by both the government in Taipei (ROC) and in Beijing (PRC). The island was also called by Hainanese fishermen in their dialect as "Widuabe" () and in Mandarin and . Outside of China and Taiwan, a common name for the island is Itu Aba, which was in use prior to 1946. Two different etymological origins have been proposed for this name: that it is a Malay expression meaning "What's that?" (conventionally spelled in Itu apa?); or that it is a corruption of Hainanese: Widuabe (). Some Western sources including U.S. government publications continue to use "Itu Aba" as the primary designator of the land feature, often with "Taiping" in parentheses.