Sanya’s beaches host the Chinese national beach volleyball team in winter, a community of about 10,000 Muslims who speak a language related to Cham, a nuclear submarine base beside the resort bays, and bus announcements in Mandarin, English and Russian.
三亚的沙滩冬天接待中国国家沙滩排球队,村里有约一万名说一种与占语相关语言的穆斯林,度假海湾旁有一座核潜艇基地,公交车报站用普通话、英语和俄语。
The name comes from a river mouth that forks like the character 丫, and the city sits at the southern tip of Hainan.
三亚的名字来自一个形如”丫”字的河口,这座城市位于海南岛的最南端。
Sand and Training
沙与训练
The Sanya training base of the Chinese national beach volleyball team stands on the beach of Sanya Bay, opposite the HNA Asia-Pacific International Conference Centre, and has eight courts and a fitness room of about 237 square metres, according to The Paper. It was built in 2007 and has hosted the FIVB World Tour’s Sanya Open, according to the same source. The team first trained there in 2006 for more than three months before the Doha Asian Games, according to Haikou Net.
据澎湃新闻介绍,中国沙滩排球队三亚训练基地位于三亚湾海航亚太国际会议中心对面的海滩上,有八块训练场地和约二百三十七平方米的体能训练房。据同一来源介绍,基地建于二零零七年,曾举办世界沙滩排球巡回赛三亚公开赛。据海口网介绍,二零零六年国家队为备战多哈亚运会首次在此训练了三个多月。
The team formed late, entering its first international competition in 1997, and the Sanya base is credited with much of its rise, according to Haikou Net. By 2016 it had put its Olympic-year winter training in Sanya for the fourth time, after 2004, 2008 and 2012, and its head coach, Miao Zhihong, said the players spent more of the year in Sanya than at home, according to the same source. The sand on the court at the Beijing 2008 Olympic beach volleyball venue came from Basuo in Dongfang, according to the same source.
据海口网介绍,中国沙滩排球队起步较晚,一九九七年才第一次组队参加国际大赛,三亚基地功不可没。据同一来源介绍,到二零一六年,国家队已是第四次把奥运年冬训放在三亚,此前是二零零四、二零零八和二零一二年,主教练缪志红说队员一年在三亚住的时间比在自己家里还长。据同一来源介绍,二零零八年北京奥运会沙滩排球场地铺的沙子,来自东方市八所。
In April 2026 Sanya opened the Sixth Asian Beach Games, with athletes from 45 Asian countries and regions, and its venues stood along 22 kilometres of the city’s coast, according to The Paper.
据澎湃新闻介绍,二零二六年四月三亚开幕第六届亚洲沙滩运动会,有来自亚洲四十五个国家和地区的运动员参加,赛事场馆沿三亚二十二公里海岸线分布。
Cham Villages and a Naval Base
占人村与海军基地
About 10,000 people called the Utsul, or Huihui, live mainly in Huixin and Huihui villages in Fenghuang town, according to Baidu Baike. They descend from Cham migrants from the kingdom of Champa, who came to Hainan in the Song and Yuan dynasties after Khmer invasions, and they speak Sanya Cham, an Austronesian language related to the Cham of Southeast Asia, with tones added through contact with neighbouring languages, according to the same source. They are Muslim, and Fenghuang has six mosques, according to Tencent News.
据百度百科介绍,约一万名回辉人主要生活在三亚凤凰镇的回新村和回辉村。据同一来源介绍,他们是占婆国的移民后裔,宋元时期因高棉人入侵而迁到海南,使用的三亚占语属南岛语系,与东南亚的占语相近,又因受周边语言影响产生了声调。据腾讯新闻介绍,他们信奉伊斯兰教,凤凰镇有六座清真寺。
During China’s ethnic identification process they were classified as Hui because of their Muslim faith, although their language and ancestry differ considerably from those of the Hui in north-west China, according to Beijing News and Baidu Baike. Scholars continue to debate their ethnolinguistic identity, according to Baidu Baike. The Japanese occupiers drove the villagers out to Yanglan and built an airfield on the site of Huixin, and some returned after the war to rebuild it, according to Baidu Baike.
据新京报和百度百科介绍,在中国的民族识别工作中,回辉人因信奉伊斯兰教被划归回族,但其语言和祖源与中国西北地区的回族有很大不同。据百度百科介绍,学界对回辉人的民族语言身份仍存在争议。据百度百科介绍,日军占领期间把村民赶到羊栏,在回新村原址修建机场,战后部分村民返回重建。
The other presence is military. Yulin Naval Base lies near Sanya’s beachfront resorts, and its eastern portion houses China’s Type 094 Jin-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Satellite imagery from July 2021 showed two Type 094s and two Type 093 attack submarines alongside four piers, guarded by a nearby surface-to-air missile site, according to the same source. East Yulin houses China’s only ballistic-missile submarine base, and the US Indo-Pacific commander, Admiral John Paparo, counted six nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines on Hainan, according to the Washington Post. Satellite photos from July 2022 showed two new piers under construction beside the four, and the base also homeports the aircraft carrier Shandong, according to Defense News. The first satellite image of a Jin-class submarine at Yulin was published in 2008, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
另一种存在是军事的。据美国战略与国际研究中心介绍,榆林海军基地靠近三亚的海滨度假区,其东部基地驻有中国的094型金级核动力弹道导弹潜艇。据同一来源介绍,二零二一年七月的卫星图像显示两艘094型和两艘093型攻击型潜艇停靠在四座码头旁,附近有一处防空导弹阵地。据《华盛顿邮报》介绍,东榆林是中国唯一的弹道导弹潜艇基地,美国印太司令部司令帕帕罗海军上将称海南有六艘核动力弹道导弹潜艇。据《防务新闻》介绍,二零二二年七月的卫星照片显示,在原有四座码头旁又有两座在建,该基地还是航空母舰”山东”号的母港。据美国科学家联盟介绍,二零零八年公布了金级潜艇在榆林的第一张卫星图像。
Russian on the Bus Stops
公交站牌上的俄语
Russian visitors are Sanya’s largest foreign group, and in the first five months of 2024 the city received 38,000 of them, 2.6 times the total for 2023, according to Sanya’s tourism bureau. Shops in Dadonghai replaced their signs with Chinese-Russian bilingual ones, and goods carry Russian labels, according to Xiaoxiang Morning News. China began a 30-day visa-free trial for Russian ordinary-passport holders on 15 September 2025, and Russian arrivals at Sanya airport in the fourth quarter of 2025 rose 400 percent, according to Sanya’s culture and tourism bureau.
据三亚市旅游发展局介绍,俄罗斯游客是三亚最大的外国客源,二零二四年前五个月接待三万八千人,是二零二三年全年的二点六倍。据《潇湘晨报》介绍,大东海的商铺把招牌换成中俄双语,商品也贴上俄语标签。据三亚市旅游和文化广电体育局介绍,中国二零二五年九月十五日起对持普通护照的俄罗斯人试行三十天免签,二零二五年第四季度三亚机场俄籍旅客入境量同比增长百分之四百。
Overnight inbound visitors passed one million for the first time in 2025, at 1.0614 million, up 41.4 percent, and they spent US$934 million, up 66.7 percent, according to Sanya’s statistics bureau. The city’s GDP reached ¥103.39 billion, up 4.8 percent, with the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors at ¥11.15 billion, ¥13.77 billion and ¥78.47 billion, and it received 36.16 million visitors, who spent ¥103.26 billion, according to the same source and Sanya’s culture and tourism bureau. Phoenix airport handled 21.43 million passengers in 2024, according to the 2024 communiqué, and the fastest train from Haikou East takes 1 hour 27 minutes, according to Sohu.
据三亚市统计局介绍,二零二五年过夜入境游客首次突破一百万,达一百零六万一千四百人次,增长百分之四十一点四,花费九点三四亿美元,增长百分之六十六点七。据同一来源和三亚市旅文局介绍,全市地区生产总值一千零三十三点八八亿元,增长百分之四点八,三次产业增加值分别为一百一十一点四五亿元、一百三十七点六九亿元和七百八十四点七四亿元,接待游客三千六百一十五万八千二百人次,游客总花费一千零三十二点六亿元。据二零二四年统计公报,凤凰机场二零二四年旅客吞吐量二千一百四十二万五千九百人次;据搜狐介绍,从海口东站出发的高铁最快一小时二十七分钟。
According to Jimu News, a passenger on route 108 at Dadonghai heard the announcement in Mandarin first, then English, and then Russian.
据极目新闻介绍,一位乘客在大东海乘坐108路公交,听到的报站先是普通话,接着是英语,最后是俄语。
