Sea turtles and seabirds are native to the islands, which have a hot and humid climate, abundant rainfall and may experience annual typhoons.

[4] In February 2017, the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative reported 20 outposts of the PRC built on reclaimed land in the Paracels, three of which contain small harbours capable of berthing naval and commercial ships.

Antelope Reef, submerged at high tide and containing a central lagoon, lies 2.4 km (1.5 mi) east of Money Island.

[19][20] It was not until the reign of Emperor Minh Mạng (1820–1841) that the Spratlys were distinctly delineated and officially named Vạn Lý Trường Sa (萬里長沙), the Ten-thousand League-long Sandbank.

Prior to that, there had been no consistent designation of these islands in early Chinese sources, with names such as Changsha, Shitang, Shichuang and others being used for Paracel and Spratly inconsistently.

[24] In the 14th century Song Dynasty work Zhu fan zhi by Zhao Rugua, the names Qianli Changsha (千里長沙, lit.

"Ten-thousand mile-Rock Embankment"), which starts from Chaozhou and extends to Borneo, west to Côn Sơn Island off Vietnam and down as far as Java.

A sea chart prepared in the Daoguang era, Yiban Lu (Particular Illustrations) by Zheng Guangzu, uses Xisha to refer to Paracel.

On the "Map of the coast of Tonquin and Cochinchina", made in 1747 by Pierre d'Hondt, the dangerous band of rugged rocks was labeled "Le Paracel", a French phonetic notation.

On the "Map of Europe, Africa and Asia" published in 1598 by Cornelis Claesz, an unnamed band of rocks and sandbanks are shown near the present-day location of the Paracel and Spratly Islands.

[38] The names of Duncan, Drummond, Money, Pattle and Roberts islands were all chosen in honor of senior figures in the East India Company.

China has historically had a presence in the islands[citation needed] and, as of 2016, was engaged in major infrastructure development to support its territorial claims over the archipelago, and as a result there has been, and continues to be, a lot of construction activity.

[43] On land, in August 2020, Millennium Energy Viêtnam Co., Ltd, a member of Millennium Petroleum Corporation announced plans to develop a 600 ha, US$15 billion LNG project in the south Vân Phong area of the Khánh Hòa province, i.e. Nha Trang, near by Cam Ranh, with capacity of 9,600 MW, project which include a dock warehouse system, may be terminals, to provide gas to the power plant as well as distribute LNG in South-East Asia, supplied presumably by the offshore gas deposit along the coast of Quảng Nam province, discovered by ExxonMobil in October 2011, at 200 nautical miles (roughly 370 km), amid the area disputed by China (PRC), surrounded the Paracel Islands, in Chinese maritime border sovereignty claimed by Beijing (refer to "Battle of the Paracel Islands").

Trung Nam Group also announced in early April 2021, a wind power 900 ha complex US$174 million with capacity of 423 GW/h/year, directly connected to the country's grid through Tháp Chàm 220 kV transformer station.

[39] There is an airport on Woody Island with a 2,400 meters (7,900 ft) long runway, which can handle take-offs and landings of Boeing-737s or planes of similar size.

In April 2012, the Vice-Mayor and officials from the Haikou Municipal Government made several announcements about developing new docking facilities and hotels within the Crescent Group - on Duncan and Drummond Islands specifically.

[60] Initially there seems to have been confusion in China at the time as the Paracel Islands were not recognised as a separate geographical entity and formal protests did not immediately follow.

In 1933, France seized the Paracels and Spratlys, announced their annexation, formally included them in French Indochina, and built a couple of weather stations on them, but did not disturb the numerous Chinese fishermen it found there.

[64] At the end of the war (Asian-Pacific Region), the ROC formally retook the Paracels, Spratlys, and other islands in the South China Sea in October and November 1946.

In the Geneva accord of 1954 Japan formally renounced all of its claims to, inter alia, the South China Sea islands that it had occupied during World War II.

[67] In December 1947, the ROC drew up a map showing its eleven-dotted line U-shaped claim to the entire South China Sea, including the Spratly and Paracel Islands as Chinese territory.

[59] Japan, then at war with China, invaded the islands in 1939 on the pretext of their being a Chinese territory and placed them under the administration of Takao Prefecture in Japanese Taiwan in 1941.

[citation needed] The Qiongzhou Prefecture (the highest administrative authority in Hainan), exercised jurisdiction over the Paracel and Spratly Islands in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

In the 19th century, Europeans found that Chinese fishermen from Hainan annually sojourned on the Paracel and Spratly Islands for part of the year.

[103][104] For three months each year between 1881 and 1884, the German Imperial Navy sent two boats (the ship Freya and the warship Iltis) to study and map the Paracel Islands without either seeking the permission of or incurring protest by the Chinese government.

This mission was finished without any problems and the German Admiralty published the results in 1885 in a document called "Die Paracel-Inseln" (The Paracel Islands).

[56] In 1909, Zhang Renjun (Chinese: 張人駿), the Viceroy of Liangguang, ordered Guangdong Fleet Admiral Li Zhun (李準) to sail to the Paracel Islands.

[108] After the fall of the Qing dynasty, the new Government of Guangdong Province decided to place the Paracel Islands under the jurisdiction of the Ya Xian County of Hainan Prefecture in 1911.

On November 30 of the same year, Zhu Zhaoshen, a high-level inspection official of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, issued public correspondence Number 66 to the French Consul in Guangzhou, reiterating that "it is absolutely beyond doubt that the Xisha [Paracel] Islands fall within the boundary of China".

In the Geneva accord of 1954 Japan formally renounced all of its claims to, inter alia, the South China Sea islands which it had occupied during the World War II.