South China Sea

No sea on Earth is more heavily fought over today than the South China Sea. A vast tropical basin enclosed by China, the Philippines, Vietnam, and the islands of Southeast Asia, it carries roughly a third of global shipping across its surface and conceals oil, gas, and some of the richest fisheries in the world beneath it. Its scattered reefs and tiny islets — the Spratlys and Paracels — have become the stage for one of the twenty-first century's most dangerous territorial disputes.

At about 3.69 million square kilometres it is one of the largest seas on the planet, ringed by shallow continental shelves that plunge into the China Sea Basin, which reaches some 5,016 metres at its deepest. Great rivers including the Pearl and the Mekong drain into it, and warm monsoon-driven currents sweep across it, nourishing extensive coral reefs. The sea links the Pacific and Indian Oceans through the Strait of Malacca and the channels of the Indonesian and Philippine archipelagos, making it a hinge of world trade.

For two thousand years this was the maritime Silk Road, plied by Chinese junks, Malay and Arab traders, and later European spice fleets. Today its waters carry trillions of dollars in commerce each year, and overlapping claims — most sweepingly China's nine-dash line — have driven the building of artificial island bases, naval standoffs, and a landmark international tribunal ruling in 2016. Overfishing and reef destruction compound the tension, making the sea both an economic lifeline and a geopolitical fault line.

• Indian Ocean
  The world's third-largest and warmest ocean connects to
• Pacific Ocean
  Earth's largest and deepest ocean drains to
• Mekong River
  Southeast Asia's lifeline, from the Tibetan Plateau to the sea feeds from
• Asia
  Earth's largest and most populous continent located on