Hainan
Hainan is an island province and the southernmost province of China consisting of the eponymous Hainan Island and various smaller islands in the South China Sea under the province's administration. The name literally means "South of the Sea".
The province has a land area of, of which Hainan Island is and the rest is over 200 islands scattered across three archipelagos: Zhongsha, Xisha and Nansha. It was part of Guangdong from 1950 to 1988, after which it was made a province of its own and was designated as a special economic zone by Deng Xiaoping, as part of the reform and opening up program.
The Han Chinese population, who compose a majority of the population at 82%, speak a wide variety of languages including Standard Chinese, Hainam Min, Yue Chinese, Cantonese, Hakka Chinese, etc. Indigenous peoples such as the Hlai, a Kra–Dai-speaking ethnic group, are native to the island and compose 15% of the population. Their native languages include the Hlai languages. The Hlai are recognized by the Chinese government as one of the country's 56 ethnic groups. Speakers of Be, despite speaking a Kra-Dai language, are reckoned officially as ethnically Han Chinese. Hainan is also home to the Jiamao language, of disputed provenance.
There are ten major cities and ten counties in Hainan Province. The capital of the province is Haikou, on the northern coast of Hainan Island, while Sanya is a well-known tourist destination on the southern coast. The other major cities are Wenchang, Sansha, Qionghai, Wanning, Wuzhishan, Dongfang and Danzhou. According to China's territorial claims, several disputed territories in the South China Sea, including the Spratly Islands and Paracel Islands, are administered under Sansha city of the province. While the Paracels are fully under China's control, many of the Spratly Islands are controlled by other countries, such as Vietnam and the Philippines.
In 2020, a large-scale plan was announced by the Chinese government to transform the entire island province into the Hainan Free Trade Port, with the aim of turning it into the largest free-trade port in the world by 2035. The plan involves building a hub for offshore financing and duty-free shopping, as well as using lower taxes and reduced visa requirements to help draw in foreign businesses and tourists. Moreover, all goods sold from Hainan to other parts of China would be treated as imports from 2025 onward. The Hainan Free Trade Port launched an island-wide independent customs operations in 2025.
Names
The provincial name derives from its major island, Hainan, in Hainanese "Hai Nam", which is named after its position south of the Qiongzhou Strait. Former names for Hainan Island include Zhuya, Qiongya, and Qiongzhou. The latter two gave rise to the provincial abbreviation .During the 17th and 18th centuries, explorers referred to the island as "Aynam", which remains the pronunciation of its name in the local Hainanese dialect.
History
Prehistoric era
According to some scholars, Hainan was originally attached to the Northeastern part of what is now Vietnam; however, the island was formed after it physically broke away from Vietnam due to a volcanic eruption and drifted southeast near China after the Mesozoic, millions of years ago.The Baiyue people are among the earliest Kra-Dai residents to arrive on Hainan island. They are believed to have settled there at least two to six thousand years ago, and carry genetic markers from ancient people who reached the island between 7000-27,000 years ago.
Imperial Era
Hainan Island was recorded by Chinese officials in 110 BC, when the Western Han dynasty established a military garrison there following the arrival of General Lu Bode. The process of sinicization in Hainan was driven by the conjunction of Han territorial expansion and the arrival of Han Chinese military and administrative personnel who settled on the island. Over the course of many centuries, dynastic Chinese ruling authorities exiled individuals condemned by the imperial courts as criminals or political dissidents to Hainan island and northern Vietnam. These regions were typically governed under the jurisdiction of Guangdong province. Banished people were subjected to harsh labor in the tropical climate as a form of punishment.One of the most famous exiled individuals was Su Shi, a well-known intellectual, poet, and politician of the Song era, who offended many of his colleagues and superiors in the royal court. Shi wrote extensively about his exiled experiences on the island during the 11th century AD. After the 11th century AD, large numbers of Han Chinese people from Fujian and Guangdong began migrating to the Leizhou peninsula and Hainan island to settle down their roots by seeking greener pastures on new land to establish themselves. This influx displaced the indigenous Li people, who were among the Baiyue tribes in southern China, driving them out towards the mountainous regions of the southern portion of the island. Hainan was placed under the administration of Guangdong by the ruling Ming dynasty.
Republic of China
Hainan was historically part of Guangdong and Guangxi Provinces and as such was the Qiongya Circuit under the 1912 establishment of the Republic of China. In 1921, it was planned to become a special administrative region ; in 1944, it became Hainan Special Administrative Region with 16 counties, including the South China Sea Islands.The Japanese occupied the island in 1939 during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The surviving ROC forces retreated into the interior and demanded material support from the indigenous Hlai people. The ROC suppressed the Hlai's revolt, the Baisha Uprising, and executed reprisals; the Hlai subsequently allied with the Communist's Hainan Independent Column led by Feng Baiju.
The ROC reestablished control over the island after the Second World War. With the resumption of the Chinese Civil War, the ROC was unable to suppress the islands' Communist movement, but the movement was also too weak to take control of the island. By 1950, the Communists controlled most of mainland China, founded the People's Republic of China, and were seeking to conquer the islands along the coast. The PRC invaded on 16 April 1950 and was in control of the island by 1 May.
People's Republic of China
On 1 May 1950, under the People's Republic of China, the Hainan Special Administrative Region became an Administrative Region Office, a branch of the Guangdong provincial government. During the mid-1980s, when Hainan Island was still part of Guangdong Province, a fourteen-month episode of marketing zeal by Hainan Special District Administrator Lei Yu put Hainan's pursuit of provincial status under a cloud. It involved the duty-free imports from Hong Kong of 90,000 Japanese-made cars and trucks at a cost of ¥ 4.5 billion, and exporting them – with the help of local naval units – to the mainland, making 150% profits. By comparison, only 10,000 vehicles were imported into Hainan since 1950. In addition, it involved further consignments of 2.9 million TV sets, 252,000 videocassette recorders & 122,000 motorcycles. The money was taken from the 1983 central government funds destined for the construction of the island's transportation infrastructure over the next ten years.On 1 October 1984, it became the Hainan Administrative Region, with its own People's Government. In 1988, when the island was made a separate province, it was designated a Special Economic Zone in an effort to increase investment.
The central government funds were deemed insufficient by the Hainan authorities for the construction of the island's other infrastructure and had taken a very liberal interpretation of the economic and trade regulations for Hainan and thirteen coastal cities; the regulations did not mention on prohibiting the re-selling of second-hand goods. Some of the proceeds, from unsold units, were later retrieved by the central government to re-finance the special district.
In June 2020, China announced a master plan for Hainan Free Trade Port system. Announced by state-owned media Xinhua News Agency, Hainan will "basically establish a free trade port system by 2025 and become more mature by 2035." South China Morning Post described such an initiative as an effort of PRC to "replace Hong Kong as the trading entrepôt" while Cheng Shi of ICBC International has refused to accept such a claim. Additionally, experts have raised concerns about the question of compliance of global trading practices particularly for this project.
In July 2025, Chinese officials announced that the Hainan Free Trade Port will launch island-wide independent customs operations on December 18, 2025.
Geography
Hainan, separated by the wide Qiongzhou Strait from the Leizhou Peninsula of Guangdong, is the 42nd largest island in the world. The area of Hainan Island is slightly smaller than that of Taiwan Island. To the west of Hainan Island is the Gulf of Tonkin. Wuzhi Mountain is the highest mountain on the island at.Hainan Island measures long and wide.
The northern half of Hainan is covered with the ancient Hainan Volcanic Field. Beneath the topsoil is volcanic rock while the topsoil itself contains small pieces of this vesicular rock.
Wetland covers 320,000 hectares, 78,000 hectares of which were created artificially. Most of this is located in the eastern and northern part of Hainan.
Rivers and lakes
Most of the rivers in Hainan originate in the central area of the island and flow radially in different directions. The Nandu River in the northern part of the island is long, and its tributary, the Xinwu River, is long. Other major rivers include the Wanquan River at -long in the east, Changhua River in the west, and the Sanya and Taiyang Rivers in the south. Evaporation during the dry season around the coastal areas greatly reduces the flow of the rivers.There are very few natural lakes in Hainan. However, there are numerous reservoirs, the largest of which is the Songtao Reservoir in the central-north area.