| Sanya | |
| Official Name: | City of Sanya |
| Native Name: | 三亚市 |
| Native Name Lang: | zh-Hans |
| Settlement Type: | Prefecture-level city |
| Pushpin Map: | Hainan |
| Pushpin Map Caption: | Location of the city centre in Hainan |
| Subdivision Type: | Country |
| Subdivision Name: |  China |
| Subdivision Type1: | Province |
| Subdivision Name1: | Hainan |
| Leader Title: | CPC Municipal Secretary |
| Leader Name: | Jiang Sixian |
| Area Total Km2: | 1919.58 |
| Area Urban Km2: | 1919.58 |
| Population Urban: | 1031396 |
| Area Metro Km2: | 1315.3 |
| Population As Of: | 2020 census |
| Population Total: | 1031396 |
| Population Metro: | 801020 |
| Population Density Km2: | auto |
| Population Density Urban Km2: | auto |
| Population Density Metro Km2: | auto |
| Demographics Type2: | GDP[1] |
| Demographics2 Title1: | Prefecture-level city |
| Demographics2 Info1: | CN¥ 83.5 billion US$ 12.9 billion |
| Demographics2 Title2: | Per capita |
| Demographics2 Info2: | CN¥ 79,100 US$ 12,261 |
| Timezone: | China Standard |
| Utc Offset: | +8 |
| Coor Pinpoint: | Sanya municipal government |
| Coordinates: | 18.2533°N 109.5036°W |
| Postal Code Type: | Postal code |
| Postal Code: | 572100 |
| Area Code: | 0898 |
| Iso Code: | CN-HI-02 |
| Blank Name: | Licence plate prefixes |
| Blank Info: | Chinese: 琼B |
| Pic: | Sanya (Chinese characters).svg |
| Piccap: | "Sanya" in Simplified (top) and Traditional (bottom) Chinese characters |
| Picupright: | 0.45 |
| L: | Third below the second |
| Psp: | Samah |
| S: | 三亚 |
| T: | 三亞 |
| P: | Sānyà |
| W: | San1-ya4 |
| J: | Saam1-aa3 |
| Y: | Sāam-aa |
| Hain: | Tâ-ⁿa |
| Showflag: | hain |
| Order: | st |
Sanya is the southernmost city on Hainan Island, and one of the four prefecture-level cities of Hainan Province in South China.
According to the 2020 census, the total population of Sanya was 1,031,396 inhabitants,[2] living in an area of . Nevertheless, its built-up (or metro) area encompassing Haitang and Jiyang Districts was home to 801,020 inhabitants as of 2020.
The city is renowned for its tropical climate and has emerged as a popular tourist destination, also serving as the training site of the Chinese national beach volleyball team. Sanya is home to small concentrations of Utsul people. Sanya is also the location of Yulin Naval Base, a major military facility on the South China Sea which is home to the People's Liberation Army Navy ballistic nuclear missile fleet.
Known in ancient times as Yazhou, postal romanization: Aichow (Chinese: 崖州), literally "cliff state or prefecture", Sanya's history dates to the Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE). Due to its remoteness from the political centers during the Qin dynasty, Sanya was sometimes called Tianya Haijiao (Chinese: 天涯海角), meaning "the end of the sky and ocean" or "the end of the earth". As a result, the city served as a place of exile for officials who found themselves out of favor with the country's rulers.
During the Tang dynasty, a Buddhist monk accidentally landed here, using the site as a staging post on his missionary journey to Japan.[3]
In 1912, Yazhou became Yaxian (Yai-hsien) (Chinese: 崖县; postal: Aihsien).
In 1958, administration of Yaxian relocated from Yacheng to Sanya and Yaxian merged with Baoting, Lingshui, Niulou, and Xinglong, Wanning, to become a large county. In 1959 and 1961, these areas were separated to establish Baoting and Lingshui while Yaxian County remained in its current prefecture. Approved by the State Council of China, Yaxian was upgraded to Sanya City on 26 September 1987 and Sanya City was officially established on 30 December 1987.[4]
In 2007, the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee announced that the city of Sanya would become the first leg of the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics torch relay in China.[5]
Sanya lies at the southern tip of Hainan Island on Sanya Bay. Located at 18° 15' N latitude, Sanya is–after Sansha (also administered by Hainan Province)–the second-southernmost prefecture-level city nationally. Though the administrative area (Sanya City) has a rough topography, the city itself is generally flat, lying on a parcel of land between low-level mountains to the north and the South China Sea.
The area has a tropical wet and dry climate (Köppen Aw),[6] featuring hot weather all year around. Monsoonal influences are strong, with a relatively lengthy wet season and a pronounced dry season. The coolest month is January, with an average high temperature of, while the hottest, unlike much of the rest of China, is June, with an average high temperature of ; the mean annual high temperature is . Water temperatures remain above year-round.[7]
Since meteorological records began, the average annual temperature in Sanya has warmed in fluctuations. Taking 2023 as an example, the average annual temperature in Sanya is, 0.5°C higher than the average from 1991 to 2020, with the average temperature of the coldest month (January) being and the hottest month (June) being .[8]
Before 30 July 2014, there was direct jurisdiction over four county-level districts and two township-level subdistricts, six towns and four state-run farms in Sanya City. Now there are four districts in Sanya.
| Map | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| District | Simplified Chinese | Hanyu Pinyin | Population | Area (km2) | Density (/km2) | |
| Jiyang | Chinese: 吉阳区 | Jíyáng Qū | 257,061 | 372 | 691.02 | |
| Tianya | Chinese: 天涯区 | Tiānyá Qū | 269,935 | 944 | 285.94 | |
| Haitang | Chinese: 海棠区 | Hǎitáng Qū | 76,562 | 255 | 300.24 | |
| Yazhou | Chinese: 崖州区 | Yázhōu Qū | 160,000 | 347 | 460.10 | |
In recent years Sanya has become a popular tourist destination. Numerous international five star hotel chains are now established in the area. In 2009, the luxury Mandarin Oriental, Sanya hotel opened in the Dadong Hai area, the first Mandarin Oriental property on Hainan Island. There are now over 100 hotels, ranging from international brands to locally managed resorts.
Russian and English signs can be seen throughout the city. In response to claims of over-charging of tourists (whether foreign or Chinese) at restaurants in the city,[9] Hainan government officials and Sanya city officials have vowed to crack down on the practice.[10] The Sanya Industrial and Commercial Bureau has implemented a real-time information system of the city's seafood restaurants during the May Day holiday for public supervision in order to stop any future price gouging by restaurants.
Sanya also hosts the Guanyin of Nanshan, that is located within the Nanshan Temple (Sanya).
Nature reserves of Yalong Bay Tropical Paradise Forest Park (Chinese: 亚龙湾热带 天堂森林公园) and Sanya Coral Reef National Nature Reserve (Chinese: 三亚珊瑚礁国家级自然保护区) are located nearby Yalong Bay, and Yalong Bay National Tourism Holiday Resort was created. In recent years, as the waters of Sanya Bay and others below mentioned are becoming clearer and healthier, several species of dolphins, including endangered Chinese white dolphins, appear along the coasts from time to time. However, they have not been considered as targeted tourism attractions.[11] [12]
The city is served by Sanya Phoenix International Airport. Taxis are available throughout the city.
Buses from other parts of Hainan serve Sanya's bus terminal. The No. 8 bus connects the airport to Dadonghai Beach. From there tourists can take the 24 or 25 bus to Yalong Bay or the 28 bus to Haitang Bay. There is also a free bus from Luhuitou Square to the Duty-Free Shopping Center at Haitang Bay, the largest such center in China.
The Hainan East Ring Intercity Rail links Sanya and Haikou and runs along the east coast of Hainan Island. There are 15 stations in between, either in operation or still under construction. Trains are designed to travel at . Travel time from Sanya to Haikou is approximately 1 hour and 22 minutes. The Hainan Western Ring High-Speed Railway, running along the west coast of the province also links Sanya to Haikou.
See main article: Sanya Tram. Sanya's tram service began trial operation on 7 January 2019.[13] Trams are composed of five carriages with a maximum seating capacity of 362 people. In built up and urbanised areas, the maximum speed of the tram is 50 km/h. The current tram route begins at Sanya Railway Station and finishes at Jiangang Road Station, which is currently the southernmost railway station in China. Full operation of the first line started on 10 October 2020.
There are a total of 54 hospitals in Sanya as of March 2019, both public hospitals funded by the state and private hospitals. There are also numerous clinics for doing annual health-checks, which are usually brands of national chains in China, such as Ciming Healthcheck.
Hainan 301 Hospital, a branch hospital of People's Liberation Army General Hospital, is located in the Haitang Bay area of Sanya.[14] The hospital possesses a substantial number of state-of-the-art equipment for medical and research purposes which include a Da Vinci surgical system, different MIR system (including 1.5T MRI 3.0T MRI), Helical CT facilities (including 128-Slices CT), medical linear accelerator and electronic microscopes which are worth more than 450 million yuan. The hospital has 500 patient beds, and a total of 74 clinical, medical and nursing departments.
Sanya Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital (Chinese: 三亚市中医院) is located on Fenghuang Road.[15] It is a grade-A tertiary hospital offering medical care, education, research, healthcare services and International Chinese Medicine exchange and cooperation.
See also: List of universities and colleges in Hainan. Sanya University (Chinese: 三亚学院) Located at Xueyuan Rd., Yingbin Ave. Sanya Hainan 572022. Sanya University is an independent undergraduate university. The university has fourteen schools: Social Development, Law, Finance and Economics, Management, Tourism Management, Humanities and Communication, Arts, Foreign Languages, Engineering, Physical Education, General Education & Foundation Courses, International Tourism, International Education and Music, and other, and offers 56 undergraduate majors.[16]
Qiongzhou University (Chinese: 琼州大学) is located at 1 Yucai Road. The only public university located in Sanya, Qiongzhou is actively pursuing more foreign enrollments, hoping to attract Chinese tourism and language students to the city.[17] Courses offered to international students are: elementary Chinese, intermediate Chinese, advanced Chinese (listening, speaking, reading and writing), English, Russian (listening, speaking, reading and writing), Chinese calligraphy and painting, Chinese martial arts, Chinese history, studies of Li and Miao Cultures, tourism and recreational management, and music performance.
The city government states on its website that "Being the second-largest city in Hainan, the education in Sanya is relatively better than the average level in Hainan Province" but that the kindergartens are not as good as those in major Chinese cities and that the primary and secondary schools are still below the Chinese national average.[18]
According to the city government, Primary schools No.7 and No.9 are the best in the city and that Bayi Primary School "is also of good quality".[18] The city government identifies the best lower secondary (junior high school) and upper secondary (senior high school) institutions as Sanya Shiyan Middle School and Sanya No.1 High School, respectively.[18]
The International School of Sanya (formerly Canadian International School of Sanya) is the first school to offer two programs: Canadian and Mandarin, in Hainan. The school has announced its relocation to the BanShanBanDao -Serenity Coast (Chinese: 半山半岛) residential area in August 2014, where the new campus will offer pre-K. day students and boarding facilities for students.
The city has hosted:
| Country | City | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alhambra, California | 1994.10.05 | ||
| 1997.07.19 | |||
| 1997.11.17 | |||
| Seogwipo | 2008.04.04 | ||
| Cancún | 2010.08.10 | ||
| Khabarovsk | 2011.11.28 | ||
| 2016.09.06 | |||
| George Town, Penang | 2017[23] |