Sansha

//sɑnˈʃɑː// name

name ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A prefecture-level city of Hainan, China (claimed areas encompass areas administered or claimed by Brunei, China (PRC), Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan (ROC), and Vietnam).

    "In 2007 Beijing established the new Sansha municipality in Hainan Province, which has jurisdiction over three islets that Vietnam claims in the Spratly and Paracel archipelagos. This led to large-scale protest demonstrations outside the Chinese embassy in Hanoi."

  2. 2
    A town in Xiapu, Ningde, Fujian, China

    "Sansha Bay, 62 miles north of Foochow, is one of the good harbors on the China coast. It has deep water and is surrounded on all sides by steep precipices."

Synonyms

All synonyms

Example

More examples

"In 2007 Beijing established the new Sansha municipality in Hainan Province, which has jurisdiction over three islets that Vietnam claims in the Spratly and Paracel archipelagos. This led to large-scale protest demonstrations outside the Chinese embassy in Hanoi."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of the Mandarin 三沙 (Sānshā, literally “three sands”), from the three areas of Nansha (南沙 (Nánshā, literally “south sands”)), Xisha (西沙 (Xīshā, literally “west sands”)) and Zhongsha (中沙 (Zhōngshā, literally “central sands”)).

Etymology 2

From Mandarin 三沙 (Sānshā) Wade–Giles romanization: San¹-sha¹, reinforced by Hanyu Pinyin.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.