An island with an unusual shape has been growing in shallow coastal waters near China’s Hainan Island.
In 2001, Dubai started construction on three large artificial islands in the Persian Gulf shaped like palm trees. A few years later, Doha began dredging for an island that resembled a string of pearls, and the United Arab Emirates went to work building an archipelago of 300 small islands strategically placed to look like a map of Earth.
Now another island with an unusual shape has been growing in shallow coastal waters near Hainan, China’s southernmost province. Ocean Flower Island, built in Yangpu Bay, spans roughly 8 square kilometers (3 square miles), putting it among the world’s largest artificial islands.
The Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 captured this natural-color image of the new island on May 6, 2020, as construction was wrapping up and the island neared its full opening in late 2020. Early signs of construction of the main island became visible to Landsat in 2012; by 2014, the main flower-shaped island had started to take shape. By 2020, it was flanked by two connected islands shaped like leaves. A mixture of parks, residential towers, museums, and other infrastructure had sprung up on the new land.
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Image via NASA Earth Observatory
