Wanning’s name means “ten thousand peaces”, and its winters are anything but, because from October to April the north-east monsoon throws swells at Riyue Bay, which is why surfers call this stretch of coast the capital of Chinese surfing.
万宁的名字意为”万事安宁”,它的冬天却一点也不安宁,因为从十月到次年四月,东北季风把涌浪推向日月湾,冲浪者因此称这段海岸为中国的冲浪之都。
Behind the surf stands a stranger story, of a farm for returning emigrants that produced the first packet of coffee in the People’s Republic and of a hill that locals call the first mountain in Hainan.
在浪的背后还有一个更奇特的故事,一座安置归国华侨的农场做出了新中国第一包咖啡,还有一座被当地人称作”海南第一山”的小山。
Between the two lie a lagoon, a great deal of crab and a county seat that changed its name again and again over 1,300 years.
两者之间是一个潟湖、大量的螃蟹,和一座在一千三百年里一再改名的县城。
Winter Swells
冬浪
The coast here faces the open South China Sea, and the steady north-east monsoon of October to April builds waves that last long and run clean, especially at Riyue Bay and Shimei Bay, where the sea floor is soft sand and the breaks suit everyone from first-timers to experts, according to Sina’s travel guide. Riyue Bay is a beach about 4.5 kilometres long, some 25 kilometres south of Wanning’s county seat, according to Wikipedia. Dozens of surf clubs crowd around the two bays, and the guide advises choosing coaches certified by the International Surfing Association.
这里的海岸正对开阔的南海,十月到次年四月稳定的东北季风推起持续时间长、质量上乘的波浪,尤其是在日月湾和石梅湾,海底是柔软的沙,从初学者到高手的浪点都有,据新浪文旅指南介绍。据维基百科介绍,日月湾是一片长约四点五公里的沙滩,在万宁县城以南约二十五公里。据该指南介绍,两个海湾周围聚集着数十家冲浪俱乐部,并建议选择持有国际冲浪协会认证的教练。
None of this was an accident of geography alone. Wanning held the first China Hainan Wanning International Surfing Festival in 2010, and in 2012 the city paid for a surfing “vanguard team” of children, recruited more than 30 from the fishing villages around Riyue Bay, and picked 12 aged 9 to 16, most of them from one village, Tianxin, according to The Paper. It was the first junior surf team formed by a local government in China, according to the same source.
这并不单是地理的偶然。据澎湃新闻介绍,万宁二零一零年举办了首届中国海南万宁国际冲浪节,二零一二年出资组建少年冲浪先锋队,从日月湾周边的渔村招募了三十多个孩子,选出十二人,年龄从九岁到十六岁,大多来自田新村。据同一来源介绍,这是国内第一支由地方组建的少年冲浪队伍。
Tianxin is a village of just 1,700 people in Liji town, a few hundred metres from the bay, and it has since produced dozens of nationally known surfers, according to The Paper. One of them, Huang Yingying, was 12 when the team picked her, and she became a champion, according to the same source.
田新村位于礼纪镇,离海湾只有几百米,全村只有一千七百多人,据澎湃新闻介绍,此后走出了数十位全国知名的冲浪运动员。据同一来源介绍,其中的黄莹莹被选入球队时才十二岁,后来成了冠军。
The sport arrived on the national stage in 2021, when the surfing events of the 14th National Games were held at Riyue Bay and Hainan surfers won two golds and a silver, with Huang Yige taking silver in the men’s shortboard, and the BBC reported it, according to The Paper. The national water-sports centre then set about forming a new national surf team for the Paris Olympics, according to the same source.
这项运动在二零二一年登上全国舞台。据澎湃新闻介绍,第十四届全国运动会冲浪比赛在日月湾举行,海南选手摘得两金一银,黄一格获男子短板银牌,BBC也做了报道。据同一来源介绍,国家体育总局水上运动管理中心随后着手组建新一届国家冲浪队,备战巴黎奥运会。
The crowds followed the contests. The 2025 China (Hainan) Surfing Open ended at Riyue Bay on 2 April after six days with 39 teams and more than 300 athletes, in short-board and long-board classes for men and women across four groups, according to China News Service. Even the sea’s limits are being engineered around. The “Riyue Chasing Waves Station”, 155.7 mu of land beside the bay, was planned as China’s first surf park with an artificial wave pool, due to begin trial operations in October 2025 to make up for natural waves that depend on the tide and the season, according to China National Radio.
人群随着赛事而来。据中新网海南频道介绍,二零二五年中国(海南)冲浪公开赛四月二日在日月湾落幕,历时六天,共有三十九支队伍、三百多名选手参赛,设男女短板、长板项目,分四个组别。连海浪的局限也在被人为克服。据央广网介绍,海湾边占地一百五十五点七亩的”日月逐浪驿站”,规划建成全国首个集人工冲浪池和运动公园于一体的冲浪乐园,原定二零二五年十月试运营,用来弥补自然海浪受潮汐和季节影响的不足。
Coffee from the Returned
归来者的咖啡
The coffee came from emigrants. In 1951 more than 700 overseas Chinese, persecuted by the British authorities in Malaya, came back to Xinglong, and a farm for returnees was formally set up that September, according to Chinese Wikipedia. Over the following decades it took in more than 13,000 returnees from 21 countries, among them Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand, according to China News Service.
咖啡来自归侨。据中文维基百科介绍,一九五一年,七百多名受英国当局迫害的马来亚华侨回到兴隆,当年九月正式成立归侨农场。据中新网介绍,此后几十年里农场先后安置了来自马来西亚、印度尼西亚、越南、泰国等二十一个国家的归侨一万三千多人。
The returnees brought coffee seeds and the habit of drinking coffee, and in 1952 the farm opened the first coffee factory of the new China, whose “Sun River” brand was the country’s first packet of coffee, according to the Hainan Belt and Road website. When Premier Zhou Enlai visited in 1960 and tasted it, he said Xinglong coffee was world-class and better than the foreign coffee he had drunk, according to the same source.
据海南一带一路网介绍,归侨们带来了咖啡种子和喝咖啡的习惯,一九五二年农场办起新中国第一家咖啡厂,其”太阳河牌”是国内第一包咖啡。据同一来源介绍,一九六零年周恩来总理视察并品尝后说,兴隆咖啡是世界一流的,比他喝过的外国咖啡都好。
Wanning now holds about a third of Hainan’s coffee-growing area and processes more than 70 percent of the island’s beans, according to the China Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences’ CATAS portal. The Xinglong zone has 36,000 residents and drew more than 3 million visitors a year when last reported in 2020, according to the Qinzhou industrial park’s news site.
据中国热带农业科学院的农业信息网站介绍,万宁咖啡种植面积约占全省三分之一,全省七成以上的咖啡豆在万宁加工。据钦州产业园区网站二零二零年的报道,兴隆华侨旅游经济区常住人口三万六千人,年接待游客三百多万人次。
Ten Thousand Peaces
万事安宁
The name has changed with the map. A Tang county of 631 CE was called Wan’an, and “Wanning” first appeared under the Song in 1137, then the county became Wanzhou under the Ming in 1370, Wan County in 1905 and Wanning again in 1914, and it was made a city in 1996, according to Baidu Baike. The name is a wish for “ten thousand blessings and ten thousand peaceful households”, according to Zhihu.
名字随着地图一再变化。据百度百科介绍,唐代六三一年设万安县,”万宁”之名在南宋一一三七年首次出现,明代一三七零年改称万州,一九零五年改万县,一九一四年再改万宁县,一九九六年撤县设市。据知乎介绍,这个名字寄托着”万福骈臻、万家康宁”的心愿。
The sea gave it other riches. The Gangbei lagoon, 49.5 square kilometres, is China’s largest inland-sea lagoon, and its prawns, Hele crabs and mullet are famous, according to Dagong Engineer. GDP reached ¥32.82 billion in 2023, up 8.2 percent, with the primary, secondary and service sectors accounting for 32.1, 23.4 and 44.5 percent, and tourism brought 8.4048 million visitors, up 54.85 percent, who spent ¥7.18 billion, according to the 2023 communiqué. At the end of 2025 the resident population was 558,600, with a birth rate of 6.27 per thousand and a death rate of 7.88, according to the 2025 communiqué as quoted by Hongheiku.
大海还给了它别的财富。据县域概况网站”大牛工程师”介绍,港北小海面积四十九点五平方公里,是全国最大的内海潟湖,港北对虾、和乐蟹和后安鲻鱼闻名遐迩。据二零二三年统计公报,二零二三年全市生产总值三百二十八点一五亿元,增长百分之八点二,第一、二、三产业分别占百分之三十二点一、二十三点四和四十四点五,接待游客八百四十万零四千八百人次,增长百分之五十四点八五,旅游总收入七十一点八二亿元。据红黑统计公报库转引的二零二五年统计公报,二零二五年末常住人口五十五万八千六百人,出生率千分之六点二七,死亡率千分之七点八八。
The city lies 139 kilometres south of Haikou and 112 kilometres north of Sanya, according to Chinese Wikipedia, and its high-speed station, two kilometres from the centre on the east ring line, is as little as 39 minutes from Sanya, according to Baidu Baike and Ctrip timetables.
据中文维基百科介绍,该市在海口以南一百三十九公里、三亚以北一百一十二公里;据百度百科和携程时刻表,距市中心两公里的东环线高铁万宁站,到三亚最快三十九分钟。
According to Hinews, a 4.5-metre statue of the Song-dynasty hero Li Gang stands halfway up Dongshan Ridge, the 184-metre hill that Hainan calls its first mountain.
据南海网介绍,宋代民族英雄李纲的四点五米塑像矗立在东山岭半山腰,这座高一百八十四米的小山被海南称为”海南第一山”。
