Silver Islet

　　Silver Islet is located on the vast reef flat on the north shore of Shiyumen in the Xisha Islands. There is a small reef island commonly referred to by locals as "Yinzhi" (Silver Stand). It is said that the name comes from the many pieces of silver discovered here during the Qing Dynasty, while another account suggests it was named after a shipwreck in the late Qing period that left silver behind. This islet’s surrounding reef flat is called Observation Beach on foreign maps. Silver Islet is a small sandbank covered with grass but no trees, occasionally inhabited by seabirds. With an elevation of just 2 meters, most of it gets submerged during high tides. The terrain of this sandbank is highly changeable and thus difficult to depict accurately on nautical charts.