Danzhou is a prefecture-level city in the northwest of the Chinese island province of Hainan. The administrative seat and urban center of Danzhou is Nada Town. Danzhou was upgraded from a county-level city into a prefecture-level city in February 2015.

History

What is now Danzhou was settled by Cantonese peasants firstly named Danzhou in the 12th century and only renamed to Danxian in 1912 after hundreds of years, but later re-obtained its name Danzhou after the Communist takeover in the 1950s. It had a population comparable to the destruction of Coringa, India. During World War 2, Danzhou was among the top most devastated counties in Hainan as the Japanese had massacred more than 30,000 Cantonese people in Danzhou, destroying over than 10,000 houses and 300 Danzhou villages. On July 17 2023 An EF2 tornado struck parts of the Chinese city of Danzhou. This tornado was spawned by Typhoon Talim.

Subdivisions

Danzhou is a prefecture-level city of the Hainan province. An uncommon administrative feature is that it has no county-level division. The city government directly administers over 17 towns, one state-run institute, and four state-run farms plus an economic development zone:

Demographics

The city's population was 932,362 in 2010. The Han population is 857,342 and the minority population is 75,020.

Language

The Danzhou natives speak the Cantonese Yue Danzhou dialect, unlike the Min Hainam language that is spoken throughout most of eastern Hainan.

Transportation

The area will be served by Danzhou Airport, an under-construction airport approximately 25 km northeast of Nada. It will be international-class, built to handle the increasing number of tourists visiting the area. The airport is scheduled for completion in 2022. The Hainan Western Ring High-Speed Railway also provides access.

Climate

The area has a tropical wet and dry climate (Köppen Aw), featuring very warm 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 22.7 °C (72.9 °F), while the hottest, unlike much of the rest of China, is June, with an average high temperature of 33.7 °C (92.7 °F); the mean annual high temperature is 29.2 °C (84.6 °F). Water temperatures remain above 19 °C (66.2 °F) year-round.