Taiwan and larger than Belgium. The island of Taiwan has an area of , and lies some from the southeastern coast of mainland China across the Taiwan Strait. The East China Sea lies to the north, the Philippine Sea to the east, the Bashi Channel of the Luzon Strait directly to the south, and the South China Sea to the southwest. Its shape is similar to a sweet potato, giving rise to the slang term "hanji" ("sweet potato" in Hokkien) used by Taiwanese Hokkien speakers to refer to people of native Taiwanese descent. The island is characterized by the contrast between
Island of the Blue Dolphins one of the Channel Islands off the California coast, before being discovered and taken to the mainland in 1853 by sea otter hunter George Nidever and his crew. She is on record under the Christian name Juana Maria, assigned to her by the Santa Barbara Mission where she eventually was brought. No one alive spoke her language. According to Nidever, the Lone Woman lived in a structure supported by whale ribs and stashed useful objects around the island. In 2009, University of Oregon archaeologist Jon Erlandson found two old redwood boxes eroding from an island sea cliff, with a whale