the island, meant that Singapore had gained sovereignty over Pedra Branca. On the other hand, Middle Rocks remain part of Malaysian territory as Singapore had not manifested any acts of sovereignty in respect to it. The Court did not rule definitively on the remaining outcrop, South Ledge, declaring that it belonged to the state in the territorial waters of which it is located. Malaysia and Singapore have established the Joint Technical Committee to delimit the maritime boundary in the area around Pedra Branca and Middle Rocks, and to determine the ownership of South Ledge. On 1 February 2019, Pedra Branca was added to East Coast GRC for the Parliament of Singapore. Etymology Pedra Branca means "white rock" in Portuguese, and refers to whitish guano (bird droppings) deposited on the rock by the black-naped tern, which used the island as a nesting ground. This name is used by both the English-language and Malay-language press in Singapore. Malaysia formerly referred to the island as Pulau Batu Puteh, which means "white rock island" in Malay, but the Government of Malaysia subsequently decided to drop the word Pulau ("Island"). In August 2008 Foreign Minister Rais Yatim said Malaysia considered that the maritime feature did not meet internationally recognised criteria for an island, that is, land inhabited by humans that had economic activity. The island is known in Mandarin as Baijiao (), which means "white reef". The Tamil name is , a transliteration of Pedra Branca. Geography Pedra Branca, located at 1° 19′ 48″ N and 104° 24′ 27″ E, is an island with an area of about at low tide. During the low water spring tide it measures, at its longest, a mere and has an average width of . It is approximately to the east of Singapore; south of Johor, Malaysia; and north of Bintan, Indonesia. There are two maritime features near Pedra Branca. Middle Rocks, which is under the sovereignty of Malaysia, consists of two clusters of small rocks about apart situated south of the island. They stand to permanently above water. South Ledge, on the other hand, is a rock formation visible only at low-tide. It is to the south-south-west of Pedra Branca. Its ownership has yet to be definitively determined by Malaysia and Singapore. Rock samples from Pedra Branca, Middle Rocks and South Ledge show they are all composed of a light, coarse-grained biotite granite. Therefore, from a geomorphological standpoint,