Haikou; the River-Mouth Capital that Shared a Province with Hanoi

Haikou is China’s youngest provincial capital, set at a river mouth about 460 kilometres across the Gulf of Tonkin from Hanoi, on an island the Han once governed in the same province as Vietnam’s Red River delta.

海口是中国最年轻的省会,坐落在一处河口,隔北部湾与河内相距约四百六十公里,而它所在的这座岛,汉朝曾把它与越南红河三角洲划在同一个州里。

Its name is a plain description, “sea mouth”, for the place where the Nandu River empties into the Qiongzhou Strait. Until 1988 it was a port town of Guangdong, and what made it were a river, a strait, an earthquake and the country across the water.

它的名字是一句朴素的描述,”海口”就是南渡江汇入琼州海峡的地方。一九八八年以前它只是广东的一个港口小城,造就它的是一条河、一道海峡、一场地震,和隔海相望的那个国家。

Few capitals have been so repeatedly underestimated by their own coastline.

很少有省会像它这样,一再被自己的海岸线低估。

Haikou takes its name from the mouth of the Nandu, Hainan’s longest river, and it has been a trading port for more than 1,000 years, since the Northern Song, according to Sanya News. The coast was against it. The north shore of the island is flat and shallow, and the river carries so much silt into the strait that the Song port worked only with the help of typhoons, and by the age of ocean liners it was helpless, according to the Hainan government.

据三亚新闻网介绍,海口得名于海南最大河流南渡江的入海之口,自北宋开埠以来已有上千年的港口历史。海岸对它并不友好。据海南省人民政府介绍,岛北海岸平坦水浅,南渡江每年把大量泥沙带进海峡,宋代的港口只能靠飓风助力才勉强成津,到了远洋巨轮的时代更是束手无策。

The outside world arrived anyway. The Treaty of Tianjin of 1858 opened Qiongzhou to foreign trade, and in 1876 a customs house and a wharf for shallow-draught boats were built on the Long Embankment, according to the same source. By 1910 the port handled 859,412 tonnes of cargo and 67,899 passengers, according to the same source.

外面的世界还是来了。据同一来源介绍,一八五八年《天津条约》开放琼州为通商口岸,一八七六年设立琼海关,并在长堤建起可停泊浅水船只的专用码头;到一九一零年,海口港年货物吞吐量已达八十五万九千四百一十二吨,旅客进出六万七千八百九十九人次。

It was a very old place with a very young title. Haikou became the capital when Hainan was made a province in 1988, and it is the youngest provincial capital in China, according to Sanya News. Su Dongpo, banished to the island in the eleventh century, joked that gentlemen of the north would stampede to be exiled there if they knew its pleasures, according to the same source.

这是一个很老的地方,却顶着一个很新的头衔。据三亚新闻网介绍,一九八八年海南建省,海口成为省会,是中国最年轻的省会城市。据同一来源介绍,十一世纪被贬到海南的苏东坡曾打趣说,北方的君子若知道这里的好处,恐怕都要争着来求被贬。

The island’s tie to Vietnam is older than any border. After the Han conquered Nanyue in 111 BCE they cut the south into nine commanderies under one inspectorate, Jiaozhi, and that province covered what is now Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan and the centre and north of Vietnam, according to The Paper. Two of the nine commanderies, Zhuya and Dan’er, were on Hainan, and the others included Jiaozhi itself, in the Red River delta, according to Baidu Baike. For a time the province’s seat was in that delta, before it moved to Guangxin, today’s Wuzhou, in 106 BCE, according to Baidu Baike.

海南与越南的联系,比任何一条国界都古老。据澎湃新闻介绍,汉朝公元前一一一年灭南越后,把南方分成九郡,置交趾刺史部统领,这个州的辖区包括今天的广东、广西、海南和越南中北部。据百度百科介绍,九郡中的珠崖、儋耳两郡在海南,其余各郡中有设在红河三角洲的交趾郡。据百度百科介绍,州治一度设在红河三角洲,公元前一零六年才迁到广信,即今天的梧州。

An old saying about Haikou sums up the geography, with the sea to the north at Hai’an, “Jiaozhi close in the south” and the Seven Islands of Wenchang to the east, according to Sanya News. The people on the other side were not abstractions. By 1893 the port’s foreign routes ran to the Netherlands, Singapore, Tokyo, Bangkok and Saigon, served by steamers from America, Britain, France, Germany, Japan and Siam, according to the Hainan government.

一句关于海口的老话道出了地理,北枕海安,”南近交趾”,东连文昌七洲,据三亚新闻网介绍。海那边的人并不是抽象的存在。据海南省人民政府介绍,到一八九三年,海口港的国外航线通往荷兰、新加坡、东京、曼谷和西贡,有美、英、法、德、日、泰等国的轮船往来。

Hainanese followed their cargo. In 1824 more than 80 Hainanese merchants in Saigon raised over 600 taels of silver for a temple to the sea goddess Mazu, the Qiongfu Assembly Hall that still stands in Ho Chi Minh City, according to Saigon Giai Phong. Vietnam listed it as a national monument in 2001, according to Li Yongqiu. In Hoi An the Qiongfu Hall is one of five Chinese assembly halls on Tran Phu street, according to Chinese Wikipedia, and Hainanese was one of the languages of the shopkeepers there, according to historian Li Qingxin.

海南人跟着货物走。据《西贡解放日报》介绍,一八二四年,西贡的八十多位海南商人集资六百多两白银,建起供奉妈祖的琼府会馆,至今仍矗立在胡志明市。据李永球介绍,越南二零零一年将其列为国家级历史文化古迹。据中文维基百科介绍,在会安,琼府会馆是陈富街五座华人会馆之一;据学者李庆新介绍,海南话是当地店主通用的语言之一。

In 2025 Hainan began full-island special customs operations, which its statistics bureau called the year’s defining event, according to the Hainan Bureau of Statistics. The province made ¥810.89 billion that year, and Haikou made ¥256.29 billion of it, up 4.8 percent, a 32 percent share and a service sector of close to 80 percent, according to the Haikou Bureau of Statistics.

据海南省统计局介绍,二零二五年海南开始全岛封关运作,该局称这是当年的标志性大事。据海口市统计局介绍,当年全省地区生产总值八千一百零八点八五亿元,其中海口二千五百六十二点八五亿元,增长百分之四点八,占全省百分之三十二,第三产业占比近八成。

The city prepared its gates. Meilan airport, Xinhai port and Xiuying port were drilled as “second-line” ports that clear goods leaving the island, according to Haikou’s planning commission. Meilan, meanwhile, struck a cooperation deal with Singapore’s Changi and added or restored 17 international routes in a year, with overseas flights increasing by 130 percent and passenger numbers by 150 percent, according to the Haikou government work report.

这座城市做好了开门的准备。据海口市发改委介绍,美兰机场、新海港和秀英港作为管理货物出岛的”二线口岸”完成了通关模拟演练。同时,据海口市政府工作报告介绍,美兰机场与新加坡樟宜机场开展空港合作,一年内恢复新开国际航线十七条,境外航班架次和旅客吞吐量分别增长一点三倍和一点五倍。

Visitors followed the flights. Haikou received 26.1013 million tourists in 2024, up 7.4 percent, who spent ¥43.37 billion, and inbound overnight visitors rose 65.3 percent to 161,100, of whom 132,400 were foreigners, according to the 2024 communiqué. The port handled 114 million tonnes of cargo, up 6.0 percent, and the resident population was about 2.41 million, according to the same communiqué and Oweidata.

游客跟着航班来了。据二零二四年统计公报,二零二四年海口接待游客二千六百一十万一千三百人次,增长百分之七点四,游客总花费四百三十三点七四亿元,入境过夜游客增长百分之六十五点三,达十六点一一万人次,其中外国人十三点二四万人次。港口货物吞吐量一点一四亿吨,增长百分之六点零;据同一公报和鸥维数据介绍,常住人口约二百四十一万人。

Just before midnight on 13 July 1605 a magnitude-7.5 earthquake struck northern Hainan, and 72 villages dropped into the sea, according to Hainan Daily. The land fell 3 to 4 metres, in places 10, and more than 100 square kilometres went under, the only quake in Chinese history known to have turned land into sea, according to Baidu Baike and the Hainan government.

据《海南日报》介绍,一六零五年七月十三日午夜前,海南北部发生七点五级大地震,七十二个村庄陷入海底。据百度百科和海南省人民政府介绍,陆地一般下沉三至四米,最深处约十米,沉没面积一百多平方公里,是中国历史上唯一一次使陆地陷成海的地震。

A little river, the Dongzhai, became a harbour, and a Wenchang clan record from the time says “the east and west mulberry fields became sea”, according to the Haikou Daily. Where the drowned fields were, the mangroves of Dongzhai Harbour now grow, and at low tide, according to the Hainan government, the stone coffins, wooden coffins, house timbers and a tea-cup stand of the sunken villages lie bare on the seabed.

据《海口晚报》介绍,一条小小的东寨河变成了港湾,当时的族谱写着”东西桑田变海”。如今淹没的田地上长着东寨港的红树林,而据海南省人民政府介绍,每当退潮,沉没村庄的石棺、木棺、房屋构件和一只茶杯底座就裸露在海底。