East is on the west here; Dongfang means “east”, yet the city stands on Hainan’s west coast. It takes its name from a Li hill village called East Village, gets more sunshine than any other place on the island and sends offshore gas to Hong Kong.
在这里,东在西边;东方意为”东”,城市却坐落在海南岛的西海岸。它的名字取自一个叫”东方”的黎族山村,比岛上任何其他地方都更能晒到太阳,还把近海的天然气送到香港。
The island’s central mountains hold back the monsoon rain before it reaches the harbour, so the city lives in their shadow, and what falls on its coast would barely fill a river bed. Two thousand years ago the Han put a county here called Nine Dragons, which the Sui later renamed Gratitude, and the sun has outlasted both names.
岛中央的山脉在季风雨到达港口之前就把它拦住了,这座城市于是活在山的雨影里,落在海岸上的那点雨水几乎填不满一条河床。两千年前汉朝在这里设了一个叫”九龙”的县,隋朝后来把它改称”感恩”,而太阳比这两个名字都长久。
East Village
东方村
The name is a joke at the compass’s expense. Three Li villages stand in the hills of Donghe town, East, Middle and West, because fang means “village” in the Li language, and the Hainan government says that when a new county was set up in 1952 its seat was placed near East Village and borrowed the name. East Village itself began as Chongji, Li for “tortoise cave”, a Song-dynasty settlement east of its two neighbours, according to the Dongfang gazetteer quoted in Hainan Daily.
这个名字是对罗盘开的玩笑。东河镇的山里有东方、中方、西方三个黎族村落,因为黎语中”方”就是”村”;据海南省人民政府介绍,一九五二年新县设立时,县城建在东方村附近,县名就借用了村名。据《海南日报》引述的《东方市志》介绍,东方村原名黎语”冲及”,意为乌龟洞,是宋代建的村子,在另外两个村的东边。
The county’s history runs far deeper than its name. According to the Hainan government, the Han founded Jiulong county here in 110 BCE at the foot of Nine Dragon Hill and abolished it in 46 BCE, and in 607 CE the Sui put Gan’en county on the same ground, named for the Gan’en River, a name that survived into the 1950s. The seat moved to the port town of Basuo in 1959, the county became a Li autonomous county in 1987 and a city in 1997, and only then was the old county town renamed Donghe, the same source says.
这个县的历史比它的名字深得多。据海南省人民政府介绍,汉朝公元前一一零年在九龙山下设九龙县,公元前四十六年撤销,公元六零七年隋朝在同一块土地上设感恩县,得名于感恩河,这个名字一直用到二十世纪五十年代。同一来源说,县城一九五九年迁到港口八所,一九八七年改为黎族自治县,一九九七年设市,旧县城东方镇到这时才改名东河镇。
Sun, Wind and Drought
阳光、风与旱
The Hainan government credits Dongfang with the most hours of sunshine, the highest UV levels and the driest climate on the island. Chinese Wikipedia gives it 2,574.3 hours of sunshine a year and a mean temperature of 25.5°C, with vegetation that runs from coastal desert steppe in the west to monsoon rainforest in the eastern mountains.
据海南省人民政府介绍,东方是海南日照时数最多、紫外线最强、气候最干旱的地方。中文维基百科记载,这里每年日照二千五百七十四点三小时,年平均气温二十五点五摄氏度,植被从西部沿海的荒漠草原过渡到东部山区的季风雨林。
Evaporation is the clearest sign. Baidu Baike puts it at 2,596.8 millimetres a year, more than the roughly 900 millimetres of rain that reaches the coast, and records the island’s highest average wind speed, 4.8 metres a second. The county-profile site Dagong Engineer lists the consequences, with no rain from May 1681 to the following February and a drought from 1945 that lasted 14 months and killed almost every crop.
蒸发量最能说明问题。据百度百科介绍,年蒸发量二千五百九十六点八毫米,超过沿海约九百毫米的降雨量,年平均风速每秒四点八米,为全岛最大。县域概况网站”大牛工程师”列出了后果:一六八一年从五月到次年二月没有下雨,一九四五年的大旱持续了十四个月,几乎让庄稼全部枯死。
The same dry warmth now draws retirees. January averages 18.4°C, and according to Tencent News, winter visitors from north-east China have been choosing Dongfang over Sanya for its lower prices and drier air.
同样干爽的温暖,如今吸引着退休的人。一月平均气温十八点四摄氏度,据腾讯新闻报道,东北来的越冬者因为物价更低、空气更干,越来越多地选择东方而不是三亚。
Gas, Iron and Rice
天然气、铁矿与稻谷
The port came from a war. Chinese Wikipedia says the Japanese army picked the site at Basuo in 1940 to ship out the iron ore of Shilu, and the 2025 communiqué says the port handled 17.39 million tonnes in 2025, up 13.6 percent.
这座港口来自一场战争。中文维基百科说,一九四零年日军选定八所建港,以便运走石碌的铁矿;二零二五年统计公报说,该港二零二五年的货物吞吐量为一千七百三十九万吨,增长百分之十三点六。
The wealth is under the sea. The Dongfang 1-1 gas field and its onshore terminal went into service together in 2003, and Hainan Daily describes it as China’s first independently operated giant gas field, with nearly 100 billion cubic metres of gas in place. The same report says gas from the neighbouring Dongfang 13-2 field travels through the Yacheng pipeline to a terminal in Hong Kong and through the Ledong pipeline to Dongfang. A 508-millimetre subsea pipeline comes ashore in the industrial park, set up in 2011 on 46.2 square kilometres, according to the Dongfang government, and Chinese Wikipedia counts the city among China’s biggest producers of fertiliser, synthetic ammonia and methanol.
财富在海底。东方1-1气田与其陆上终端二零零三年同步投用,《海南日报》称它是中国首个自营的、地质储量接近千亿立方米的大气田。同一报道说,相邻的东方13-2气田的天然气经崖城海管输往香港终端,又经乐东海管输往东方终端。据东方市人民政府介绍,一条直径五百零八毫米的海底输气管道在二零一一年设立的东方工业园区登陆,园区规划面积四十六点二平方公里;中文维基百科把这座城市列为中国最大的化肥、合成氨、甲醇生产基地之一。
Almost a third of the economy still comes from the land and the sea. In 2025, according to the communiqué, GDP reached ¥28.54 billion, up 5.3 percent, with the primary, secondary and service sectors accounting for 31.0, 34.4 and 34.6 percent, respectively, and the resident population was 466,200, with 4,000 births and 3,000 deaths.
近三分之一的经济仍来自土地和海洋。据统计公报,二零二五年全市生产总值二百八十五点三七亿元,增长百分之五点三,第一、二、三产业分别占百分之三十一点零、三十四点四和三十四点六;常住人口四十六点六二万人,全年出生四千人、死亡三千人。
Visitors are arriving in growing numbers, 4.4317 million in 2025, up 8.0 percent, the communiqué reports. Tencent News wrote in 2021 that the high-speed station stands in the city centre, with trains to Haikou in 1 hour 40 minutes and to Sanya in an hour, and a local guide puts the city 210 kilometres south of Haikou by road.
游客也越来越多,统计公报称二零二五年接待四百四十三万一千七百人次,增长百分之八点零。腾讯新闻二零二一年写道,高铁东方站就在市中心,到海口一小时四十分钟,到三亚一小时;当地指南说该市在海口以南二百一十公里。
In Shisuo village, in the port town of Basuo, a well more than 2,000 years old is still known as the Fubo Well, named for the Han-era title Fubo, meaning “Wave-Subduer”, according to Sohu.
据搜狐介绍,八所镇十所村有一口两千多年历史的古井,至今仍被称为”伏波井”,得名于汉代的将军称号”伏波”,意为”制伏波涛”。
