The Spratly Islands
Spratly Islands, South China Sea
Covering over 154,440 square miles of ocean, these islands might seem like a small and trivial item, but they happen to find themselves at the middle of a dispute between 6 countries, due to geography and international politics.
Essentially China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei have all laid claims to these islands and tried to establish a military presence on them. They’ve even tried to colonize them, only to get chased off by one of the other countries.
So what makes these islands so special? Oil, of course.