Beihai Introduction

Beihai located in the southwest area of China, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region .Due to Beihai’s advantageous position who is lying on the northeastern bank of Beibu Gulf, it is known as an excellent tourist city. It is a hub city connecting the southwest of China to Southeast Asia while lying adjacent to Guangdong, Hainan, Hong Kong, Macau and Viet Nam. Beihai is a beautiful and romantic city boasting subtropical seaside scenery.

Beihai covers an area of 3,337 square kilometres with a greater population of 1.35 million and urban population of 430,000. In 1984, Beihai was designated as one of China’s fourteen coastal cities opened to the outside world.

Beihai is located in the south subtropical zone featuring the maritime climate with monsoon style. The annual average temperature is 22.4C (about 72F ) and the highest is 37.7C (about 100F) while the lowest is about -1C (about 30F). That is to say, there are no frosty days in winter and no extremely hot days in summer.

Beihai’s history as a fishing and trading port dated back to the late Qin (221BC–206BC) and early Han Dynasties (206BC–220AD). It was one of the starting points of the “Marine Silk Route” in Tang Dynasty (618AD–907AD). Established in 1374 in the seventh year of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), an ancient settlement called Bailong (White Dragon) Pearl Town flourished on the coast near Hepu county. Pearl divers forced to dive with stone weights around their waists, tied to ropes, harvesting the sea beds of precious natural pearls for Emperor Hong Wu. Many divers perished in the dangerous shark infested waters.

History
Beihai means north of the sea and it is thought the name Beihai was established by the placing of the a town maker on this site in 1662, early Qing Dynasty. In 1796 Beihai became a city. In 1876 Beihai was designated as one of the open trading ports along with Yichang, Wenzhou and Wuhan by the Sino-British Yantai Treaty. Before long, British, French, German, Danish, Portuguese, Norwegians, Dutch, American and Japanese came and established consulates, custom houses, banks, churches, hospitals, schools,,firms and shipyards. Many of these buildings can still be seen today and a walk along Old Street (Zhuhai Road) will delight our visitors.

Beihai has jurisdiction over Haicheng district,Yinghai district, Tieshan port district and Hepu county including 27 towns or townships , 5 subdistricts, 87 neighbourhood commissions , 343 villager commissions and 6630 villager squads.

Standard time zone: UTC/GMT +8 hours