Beihai; the World’s “Fastest-Growing City” that Quadrupled Only on Paper

Forecasters once crowned Beihai the world’s fastest-growing city, promising 5.8 million people by 2020; the census counted 1.85 million, yet this coast has traded pearls since the Han and slid a British consulate 56 metres to make room for a road.

预测者曾把北海封为世界增长最快的城市,称到二零二零年人口将达五百八十万;人口普查数出的是一百八十五万。然而这片海岸自汉代起就在交易珍珠,还曾为给马路让路,把一座英国领事馆平移了五十六米。

On paper it was a miracle. On the ground it is a quiet harbour town on the north-east shore of the Beibu Gulf, with arcaded streets, a silver beach and a past far older than its forecasters understood.

在纸面上,这是一个奇迹。在现实中,它是北部湾东北岸一座安静的港城,有骑楼老街,有银色沙滩,还有一段比预测者所知古老得多的往事。

That past has three layers, a Han-dynasty port, a treaty port of the 1870s and a speculative boom of the 1990s, and the forecast was a photograph of the third.

这段往事有三层:汉代的港口、十九世纪七十年代的通商口岸和九十年代的投机狂潮。那份预测,拍下的正是第三层。

The idiom “the pearls return to Hepu”, meaning a lost thing that comes home, comes from an anti-corruption tale in the Book of the Later Han, in which the pearls leave and come back within a year, according to the Guangdong Qingfeng website. Hepu, the old name for the county now inside Beihai, was set up in 111 BCE and has kept it for more than 2,100 years, and it was one of the starting ports of the Maritime Silk Road, according to the Silk Roads portal.

成语”珠还合浦”指失物复得,出自《后汉书》里一个廉政故事,故事里珍珠离去、一年后又回来了,据南粤清风网介绍。合浦是如今北海所辖的古县,据丝绸之路网介绍,它公元前一一一年设县,两千一百多年来地名未改,是海上丝绸之路的始发港之一。

The harbour itself has vanished. Silt and a shifting coast have hidden it, and a ferry landing found near the Dalang ancient city may not be the port at all, according to Xinhua. What survives are the dead. More than 1,200 Han tombs have been dug since the 1950s from about 1,056 visible mounds, and an estimated 10,000 more lie underground, according to the Silk Roads portal and a Chinese heritage journal.

港口本身已经消失。据新华网报道,淤积和海岸变迁把它藏了起来,大浪古城附近发现的一处渡口码头,未必就是那座港口。留下来的是死者。据丝绸之路网和一份文物期刊介绍,自二十世纪五十年代以来已发掘汉墓一千二百多座,地表可见封土堆约一千零五十六个,估计地下还有近万座。

They hold nearly 20,000 objects, among them Roman glass bowls, amber and agate beads and a Persian jug from tomb 13b at Liaowei, the earliest Persian jug unearthed in China, according to Xinhua and Sohu. The tombs were listed as a national protected site in 1996 and named among the century’s 100 great archaeological discoveries in 2021, according to Xinhua.

据新华网和搜狐介绍,墓中出土文物近两万件,有罗马玻璃碗、琥珀和玛瑙串饰,还有寮尾13b号墓的波斯陶壶,是中国出土年代最早的波斯陶壶。据新华网介绍,合浦汉墓群一九九六年列为全国重点文物保护单位,二零二一年入选”百年百大考古发现”。

Beihai became a treaty port because of a murder in Yunnan. Britain used the killing of its consular officer Margary as the pretext for the Treaty of Yantai in 1876, one clause of which opened Beihai to foreign trade, according to Baidu Baike. A British customs house opened on 19 February 1877 and the first consulate, in rented houses, on 18 March, according to the Beihai library.

北海成为通商口岸,起因是云南的一桩命案。据百度百科介绍,英国借”马嘉理案”逼清政府签订一八七六年的《烟台条约》,其中一条把北海开为通商口岸。据北海市图书馆介绍,一八七七年二月十九日英国海关开办,三月十八日在租来的民房里设立了第一座领事馆。

Seven other countries followed, Germany, Austria-Hungary, France, Italy, Portugal, the United States and Belgium, and between them the eight powers put up more than 20 European-style buildings, 15 of which still stand, according to Baidu Baike. The customs building of 1883 is among the earliest, according to Sohu, and the German consulate flew its flag from 1886 to 1908, according to Chinese Wikipedia.

据百度百科介绍,随后德国、奥匈帝国、法国、意大利、葡萄牙、美国和比利时先后来到,八国共建起二十多座欧式建筑,其中十五座保存至今。据搜狐介绍,一八八三年建的北海关大楼是现存最早的西洋建筑之一;据中文维基百科介绍,德国领事馆自一八八六年设立,一九零八年撤出。

Then the road came. On 2 and 3 October 1999 the city slid the old British consulate 55.8 metres to the north-east so that Jiefang Road could be widened, according to Zhihu. The customs house and consulates were made national protected sites in 2001, and in 2019 the city stitched them into a historic quarter called “Impression 1876”, according to Sohu and the city government.

后来马路来了。据知乎介绍,一九九九年十月二日至三日,为拓宽解放路,北海把英国领事馆旧址向东北平移了五十五点八米。据搜狐和北海市人民政府介绍,海关大楼和领事馆旧址二零零一年列为全国重点文物保护单位,二零一九年被整合成名为《印象·1876》的历史文化景区。

Nearby the arcaded shopfronts of Zhuhai and Zhongshan roads run for 1.5 kilometres, “like two dragons”, according to Zhihu.

据知乎介绍,附近珠海路和中山路的骑楼绵延一点五公里,”势如两条游龙”。

In 1984 Beihai was named one of China’s first 14 open coastal cities, the only one in the west, according to Zhihu. By around 2007 the London-based site City Mayors was ranking it first among the world’s urban areas, with growth of 10.58 percent a year from 2006 to 2020 and a population rising from 1.4 million to 5.8 million, according to City Mayors, and the Christian Science Monitor repeated the claim in 2011. The site itself called its rates “assumptions based on past growth”.

据知乎介绍,一九八四年北海被列为全国首批十四个沿海开放城市之一,也是其中唯一的西部城市。大约二零零七年,总部在伦敦的网站”城市市长”把北海排在世界城市区增长榜首位,称二零零六至二零二零年年均增长百分之十点五八,人口将从一百四十万升到五百八十万,据”城市市长”网站介绍;《基督教科学箴言报》二零一一年转述了这一说法。该网站自己说,这些增长率是”基于过去增长的假设”。

The past it assumed was a frenzy. In 1991 Beihai’s urban area covered 9 square kilometres; in 1992 it leased out 67.75 square kilometres of land, and by 1993 more than 1,000 developers had arrived from across the country, according to the Economic Observer. Then Beijing tightened credit in June 1993, the builders vanished almost overnight and dozens of unfinished towers were left along the avenues, according to the same source.

它所假设的”过去”,是一场狂热。据《经济观察报》介绍,一九九一年北海城区只有九平方公里,一九九二年批租土地竟达六十七点七五平方公里,一九九三年全国各地涌来一千多家开发商。据同一来源介绍,随后一九九三年六月国家收紧银根,开发商和施工队一夜之间人去楼空,大道两侧留下几十座烂尾楼。

The 2020 census counted 1,853,227 residents, and the resident population was 1.9017 million at the end of 2024, up 13,300 on the year, with births at 8.34 per thousand and deaths at 6.42, according to the census bulletin and the 2024 communiqué. GDP reached ¥197.40 billion in 2025, up 5.2 percent, and GDP per head of ¥103,804 was second in Guangxi only to Fangchenggang, according to the 2025 data. Tieshangang, the smallest district, had 145,943 residents at the 2020 census and produced ¥59.52 billion of GDP in 2025, according to the census bulletin and NetEase.

据人口普查公报和二零二四年统计公报,二零二零年人口普查北海常住人口一百八十五万三千二百二十七人,二零二四年末常住人口一百九十点一七万人,比上年末增加一点三三万人,出生率千分之八点三四,死亡率千分之六点四二。据二零二五年数据,全年生产总值一千九百七十四点零四亿元,增长百分之五点二,人均生产总值十点三八万元,仅次于防城港,居广西第二。据人口普查公报和网易介绍,最小的铁山港区二零二零年人口普查常住人口为十四万五千九百四十三人,二零二五年创造生产总值五百九十五点一六亿元。

Fucheng airport handled 2.5179 million passengers in 2024, up 17.7 percent, the railways carried 11.6424 million, up 12.1 percent, and the port moved 55.86 million tonnes, up 5.4 percent, about a quarter of Qinzhou’s 208 million, according to the Beihai and Qinzhou communiqués.

据北海和钦州两地统计公报,二零二四年福成机场旅客吞吐量二百五十一万七千九百人次,增长百分之十七点七,铁路到发旅客一千一百六十四万二千四百人次,增长百分之十二点一,港口货物吞吐量五千五百八十六万吨,增长百分之五点四,约为钦州二点零八亿吨的四分之一。

According to the Economic Observer, in the very year of the forecast the unfinished towers of 1993 could still be seen along Beihai’s streets, most of them being repainted and fitted out at last.

据《经济观察报》报道,就在那份预测发表的那一年,北海街头仍不时可见一九九三年留下的烂尾楼,其中大部分终于在重新粉刷装修。