Part IV of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea provides that the archipelagic regime applies to ”archipelagic states”. However, it is not clearly provided whether the archipelagic regime applies to the mid-ocean archipelagos of continental countries. The recent legislative practice of the continental countries with mid-ocean archipelagos represented by Ecuador and Denmark is that they regard the archipelagos as a single unit and draw straight baselines by way of national legislation. China is also a continental country with mid-ocean archipelagos. There are four archipelagos including the Dongsha, Xisha, Zhongsha and Nansha Islands in the South China Sea. The Chinese government has not yet announced baselines and base-points for these islands except for the Xisha Islands. This article tries to analyze whether continental countries can apply the archipelagic regime based on the history of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, and how to draw the base-lines for the South China Sea Islands based on the practices of other continental countries.