China puts hundreds of uninhabited islands up for rent

China's northeastern Liaoning province is home to hundreds of uninhabited islands -- and they're available to rent.

The Liaoning Finance and Natural Resources departments issued a statement in July that circulated widely on Chinese social media this week, listing "usage fees" for the uninhabited islands.

Though the islands, like most land and resources in China, are owned by the government, they can be leased out to individuals. Their prices go as low as 3,700 yuan (about $535) per hectare a year, according to Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua.

Liaoning is home to the largest number of islands in northern China -- 633 islands in total, of which 44 are inhabited and the remaining 589 are empty. Though some of the islands lie off the coast in the Yellow Sea, many are scattered along the Yalu River that separates the province from neighboring North Korea.

Liaoning's capital, Shenyang, is about 430 miles east of Beijing, about as far as Boston to Washington, DC.

In recent years, pressure on marine resources in the region has increased, and some of the islands and their surrounding marine territory have been "used inefficiently and extensively," said the Xinhua report.

On the higher end of the scale, the islands can cost as much as 25 million yuan (about $3.62 million) per hectare a year, according to the report. The price depends on several factors, including how much it will be developed and for what purposes.

The lowest you could go is $535, by choosing the cheapest options out of all the factors. For instance, it means choosing the lowest-ranking islands on a six-tier scale, which is sorted based on "socioeconomic development"; the higher the rank, the more expensive it is.

it depends on what you want to use the island for -- tourism, agriculture, fishing, renewable energy, urban development or others. There are nine possible categories of uses, each with differing price points.

Ref: CNN