ITOP Member
Hainan, China’s southernmost province, was once an important hub of China’s Ancient Maritime Silk Road. Today, it is a fulcrum of China’s Belt and Road Initiative and China’s window of opening up to the Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean. Established by the central government as a province in 1988, it is the country’s youngest province, its biggest special economic zone, and the only tropical island province in China. It is now transforming itself into the world’s largest free trade port.
Hainan Province
Haikou
Chinese, Hainanese
10.3 Million (2023)
Subtropical to Tropical
2 international airports(Haikou Meilan International Airport and Sanya Phoenix International Airport) and 2 domestic airports(Qionghai Bo'ao Airport and Danzhou Airport, the latter is under construction)
60 Million (2022)
Renminbi (RMB)
Agriculture, Fisheries and Tourism
The Water Splashing Festival is a traditional festival of Hainan’s Li and Miao minority people. It’s celebrated every year on the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar in Baoting and it usually lasts for three to five days. By starting with a ceremony in the center of town, which then erupts into pandemonium as the entire town plus hundreds of tourists all vie to soak each other with water.
On October 12, 2021, the Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park was officially established as one of the first batch of five national parks of China. Located in the central part of Hainan Island, the park covers a total area of 4,269 square kilometers. As one of the world’s 36 biodiversity hotspots, the park boasts the most concentrated, best-preserved, largest contiguous and most diversified tropical rainforest in China and is the only remaining habitat of the Hainan Gibbon in the world, making it nationally and globally significant in terms of conservation. In recent years, a number of research projects have been conducted on protecting Hainan Gibbons. Thanks to such efforts, the population of Hainan Gibbons has increased to 37 individuals spread across six groups.
On June 30, 2023, the Hainan Coastal Scenic Highway was opened to traffic. With the highway as the “thread”, the coastal scenic spots and leisure complexes will be connected like pearls on a necklace, promoting the development of tourism. This map shows the overall layout of the Hainan Coastal Scenic Highway and the leisure complexes along it.
Hainan has been a hub on the Maritime Silk Road since ancient times, linking Asia and Oceania, connecting the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. It also sits at the crossroad of maritime routes between Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia. With its adjacency to Hong Kong, Macau and the ASEAN countries, Hainan now serves as a bridgehead for China’s opening up and a pivot along the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. Five gateway ports and the Sanya cruise home port are set to extend the reach of the Maritime Silk Road.