Definition of "Zhongsha"

The Macclesfield Bank is not a group of islands, but an extensive submerged atoll situated southeast of the Paracel Islands. Water depths range from 4 to 45 fathoms over the bank. Although the features lie below the surface of the sea, the People’s Republic of China has claimed these “islands,” which it terms the Chungsha Islands.]

, volume 5, page 272

3. Zhongsha Island. There are many sandbanks scattered far and wide on Zhongsha Island; they start in the south at latitude 15°24’N and terminate at latitude 16°15’N; in the west they start at longitude 113°40’E and terminate at longitude 114°47’E. Many coral reefs are submerged, some 10-20 m deep. Although the Zhongsha Island is submerged at present, it may come to the surface in a few years’ time and become a proper island and shoal, for the coral is rising with formidable rapidity, sometimes by one metre a year.

1990 August, Paul K.I. Chao, The Changing Geography of China: A Synoptic View‎, Hong Kong: The Commercial Press, page 120

In addition, the ROC maintains a historical claim to four groups of islands scattered over a vast area in the South China Sea that is surrounded by rich fishing grounds and gas and oil deposits. These are the Dongsha (Pratas) Islands 東沙群島, the Nansha (Spratly) Islands 南沙群島, the Xisha (Paracel) Islands 西沙群島, and the Zhongsha Islands (Macclesfield Bank) 中沙群島.

2011, “Geography”, in The Republic of China Yearbook 2011‎, New Taipei: Government Information Office, pages 24–25

(b) China’s Position on the Status of Scarborough Shoal459. China claims sovereignty over Scarborough Shoal, which in China is known as “Huangyan Dao” and treated as part of the Zhongsha Islands.⁵⁰⁰460. In China’s 1958 Declaration of the Government of the People’s Republic of China on China’sTerritorial Sea, China declared a twelve mile nautical sea from “all territories . . including . .the Zhongsha Islands.”⁵⁰¹ China’s 1992 Law on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone also included the Zhongsha Islands in China’s territorial land which generated a 12-nautical mile territorial sea.⁵⁰²

2016 July 12, PCA Case No. 2013-19 in the matter of the South China Sea arbitration before an Arbitral Tribunal constituted under Annex VII to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea between The Republic of the Philippines and the People's Republic of China : award‎, archived from the original on 29 January 2019, pages 199–200