Compare Paracel Islands (2003) - Arctic Ocean (2002)

Compare Paracel Islands (2003) z Arctic Ocean (2002)

	Paracel Islands (2003)	Arctic Ocean (2002)

Airports	1 (2002)	-
Airports - with paved runways	total: 1 1,524 to 2,437 m: 1 (2002)	-
Area	total: NA sq km land: NA sq km water: 0 sq km	total: 14.056 million sq km note: includes Baffin Bay, Barents Sea, Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea, East Siberian Sea, Greenland Sea, Hudson Bay, Hudson Strait, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea, Northwest Passage, and other tributary water bodies
Area - comparative	NA	slightly less than 1.5 times the size of the US
Background	The Paracel Islands are surrounded by productive fishing grounds and by potential oil and gas reserves. In 1932, French Indochina annexed the islands and set up a weather station on Pattle Island; maintenance was continued by its successor, Vietnam. China has occupied the Paracel Islands since 1974, when its troops seized a South Vietnamese garrison occupying the western islands. The islands are claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam.	The Arctic Ocean is the smallest of the world's five oceans (after the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, and the recently delimited Southern Ocean). The Northwest Passage (US and Canada) and Northern Sea Route (Norway and Russia) are two important seasonal waterways. A sparse network of air, ocean, river, and land routes circumscribes the Arctic Ocean.
Climate	tropical	polar climate characterized by persistent cold and relatively narrow annual temperature ranges; winters characterized by continuous darkness, cold and stable weather conditions, and clear skies; summers characterized by continuous daylight, damp and foggy weather, and weak cyclones with rain or snow
Coastline	518 km	45,389 km
Country name	conventional long form: none conventional short form: Paracel Islands	-
Disputes - international	occupied by China, but claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam	some maritime disputes (see littoral states); Russia is the first state to submit data to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf to extend its continental shelf by claiming two undersea ridges in the Arctic Ocean
Economy - overview	China announced plans in 1997 to open the islands for tourism.	Economic activity is limited to the exploitation of natural resources, including petroleum, natural gas, fish, and seals.
Elevation extremes	lowest point: South China Sea 0 m highest point: unnamed location on Rocky Island 14 m	lowest point: Fram Basin -4,665 m highest point: sea level 0 m
Environment - current issues	NA	endangered marine species include walruses and whales; fragile ecosystem slow to change and slow to recover from disruptions or damage; thinning polar icepack
Geographic coordinates	16 30 N, 112 00 E	90 00 N, 0 00 E
Geography - note	composed of 130 small coral islands and reefs divided into the northeast Amphitrite Group and the western Crescent Group	major chokepoint is the southern Chukchi Sea (northern access to the Pacific Ocean via the Bering Strait); strategic location between North America and Russia; shortest marine link between the extremes of eastern and western Russia; floating research stations operated by the US and Russia; maximum snow cover in March or April about 20 to 50 centimeters over the frozen ocean; snow cover lasts about 10 months
Irrigated land	0 sq km (1998 est.)	-
Land boundaries	0 km	-
Land use	arable land: 0% permanent crops: 0% other: 100% (1998 est.)	-
Location	Southeastern Asia, group of small islands and reefs in the South China Sea, about one-third of the way from central Vietnam to the northern Philippines	body of water between Europe, Asia, and North America, mostly north of the Arctic Circle
Map references	Southeast Asia	Arctic Region
Maritime claims	NA	-
Military - note	occupied by China	-
Natural hazards	typhoons	ice islands occasionally break away from northern Ellesmere Island; icebergs calved from glaciers in western Greenland and extreme northeastern Canada; permafrost in islands; virtually ice locked from October to June; ships subject to superstructure icing from October to May
Natural resources	none	sand and gravel aggregates, placer deposits, polymetallic nodules, oil and gas fields, fish, marine mammals (seals and whales)
Population	no indigenous inhabitants note: there are scattered Chinese garrisons (July 2003 est.)	-
Ports and harbors	small Chinese port facilities on Woody Island and Duncan Island being expanded	Churchill (Canada), Murmansk (Russia), Prudhoe Bay (US)
Terrain	mostly low and flat	central surface covered by a perennial drifting polar icepack that averages about 3 meters in thickness, although pressure ridges may be three times that size; clockwise drift pattern in the Beaufort Gyral Stream, but nearly straight-line movement from the New Siberian Islands (Russia) to Denmark Strait (between Greenland and Iceland); the icepack is surrounded by open seas during the summer, but more than doubles in size during the winter and extends to the encircling landmasses; the ocean floor is about 50% continental shelf (highest percentage of any ocean) with the remainder a central basin interrupted by three submarine ridges (Alpha Cordillera, Nansen Cordillera, and Lomonosov Ridge)
Transportation - note	-	sparse network of air, ocean, river, and land routes; the Northwest Passage (North America) and Northern Sea Route (Eurasia) are important seasonal waterways
Waterways	none	-

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