A Newsweek timelapse compiled from a decade of satellite imagery shows how China transformed an artificial island in the South China Sea into a large military outpost comparable to an unsinkable aircraft carrier.

Mischief Reef had been a low-tide atoll in the contested Spratly Islands before China began reclaiming land around its rim in the 1990s, work that was largely completed by 2015. Beijing then spent the next 10 years turning the man-made feature into its largest military base in the area.

Why It Matters

China claims sovereignty over more than 80 percent of the South China Sea , an energy-rich waterway through which as much as $5 trillion in trade flows each year.

Those claims extend to the Spratly Islands, where Chinese dredgers have created more than 3,000 acres of new la

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