Lingao Administrative Divisions

Lingao County (临高县) is located in northwestern Hainan Province, facing the Qiongzhou Strait to the north and the Beibu Gulf to the northwest. It borders Chengmai County to the east and Danzhou City to the southwest. Historically established as a county more than 1,400 years ago, Lingao has long been known for fishing, rice cultivation and distinctive folk traditions, and today its tourism identity increasingly combines coastal road trips, fishing-village culture, red heritage, mangrove wetlands, rural tourism and tropical agriculture.

Administratively, Lingao is a county directly administered by Hainan Province. It currently governs 11 towns—Lincheng, Bolian, Dongying, Bohou, Huangtong, Duowen, Heshe, Nanbao, Xinying, Diaolou and Jialai—with the county government based in Lincheng Town (临城镇). Current 2025 administrative data confirms the 11-town structure.

Different official statistical sources give slightly different area figures depending on the measurement standard. Hainan’s current international county profile uses approximately 1,299 sq km, while third national land-survey data used by current administrative records gives about 1,344.51 sq km of land and 675.66 sq km of sea area. For tourism publishing, it is therefore safer to describe Lingao as covering roughly 1,300–1,345 sq km of land rather than presenting older 1,332-sq-km figures as the only current measurement.

Administrative Structure at a Glance

Lingao differs from many mainland prefecture-level cities because there is no intermediate district or county layer below the county government. The 11 towns are the complete statutory township-level structure.

Tourism Geography of Lingao

Lingao’s tourism is becoming increasingly concentrated along two complementary belts. The first is the coastal tourism belt, linking Xinying, Diaolou, Dongying, Lincheng and Bohou through sections of the Hainan Coastal Scenic Highway. The second is the inland countryside belt, where Huangtong, Duowen, Bolian, Heshe, Nanbao and Jialai provide waterfalls, agricultural landscapes, historic schools, traditional villages and rural culture.

The approximately 58-kilometre Lingao section of the Hainan Coastal Scenic Highway links major coastal resources including Hainan Liberation Park, Dongying’s slow-tourism villages and mangrove landscapes, greatly improving the possibility of combining several towns on a road trip.

Lingao’s wider tourism identity is also strongly connected with local culture. The county’s “Li Li Mei” fishermen’s songs (临高渔歌“哩哩美”) and Lingao puppet theatre (临高人偶戏) are both national intangible cultural heritage traditions, while local seafood, roast suckling pig and agricultural products add an important culinary dimension.

Lincheng Town: County Centre, Red Heritage and Coastal Culture

Lincheng Town (临城镇) is the county government seat and the main administrative, commercial, accommodation and transport centre of Lingao. It also contains several of the county’s most important historical and cultural resources.

The best-known is Lingao Cape (临高角) and Hainan Liberation Park (海南解放公园). The cape was one of the principal landing areas during the 1950 Hainan Island Campaign, and the present memorial complex combines military history, monuments, exhibition spaces, coastline and the historic Lingao Cape Lighthouse. Hainan Liberation Park was officially designated a national 4A tourist attraction in 2022.

The surrounding Changong Village (昌拱村) is also developing red-study tourism, coastal homestays, sailing and rural experiences. The Hainan Coastal Scenic Highway passes through the area, helping integrate revolutionary history with contemporary coastal leisure.

Other Lincheng resources include Lingao Confucius Temple (临高文庙), the county’s historical urban culture and Gaoshan Ridge (高山岭) northwest of the town centre. Together, these make Lincheng the strongest base for visitors interested in Lingao’s history rather than only beaches and fishing villages.

Dongying Town: International Slow City and Coastal Rural Tourism

Dongying Town (东英镇) has developed one of Lingao’s clearest rural-tourism identities. Its coastline, rice fields, fishing villages and traditional agricultural landscapes form the core of the Dongying International Cittaslow / Slow City development concept.

Bozong Village (博纵村) has developed a cluster of seafront homestays, seafood dining and tidal-flat experiences. Visitors come for coastal sunsets, fishing-village life and ganhai, or searching the tidal flats for shellfish and other marine life at low tide.

Nearby Li’an Village (黎安村) is home to Gengdu Shanfang (耕读山房), a rural education and leisure project combining farming, vegetable growing, pottery, traditional culture, accommodation and family study programmes. It remained a popular educational-tourism destination in 2025.

Another important site is Touyang Haitang Fishing-and-Farming Cultural Tourism Area (头洋·海堂渔耕文化乡村旅游点) in Hexin Village. It integrates fishing, agriculture, camping, rural accommodation, traditional culture and environmental experiences and was rated a Five-Coconut rural tourism site, one of Hainan’s higher provincial classifications for rural tourism.

Dongying is consequently one of the best towns in Lingao for homestays, family travel, slow tourism and coastal countryside experiences.

Diaolou Town: Fishing Ports and Leisure Fishery

Diaolou Town (调楼镇) is one of Lingao’s principal traditional fishing areas. Its tourism development increasingly focuses on converting a conventional fishing economy into a combination of sea fishing, recreational boating, fishing-village accommodation, seafood and marine experiences.

Baocai Port and Baocai Village (抱才港、抱才村) are at the centre of this transition. Lingao’s first dedicated recreational fishing vessel began operating from Baocai Port in 2024, providing sea-angling, sightseeing and tidal-flat experiences.

By the 2025 May Day holiday, Baocai Village was offering fishing-village accommodation and family-oriented tidal-flat programmes, illustrating Lingao’s wider strategy of encouraging traditional fishing communities to move “toward deep sea, shore-based industries and recreational fisheries.”

Diaolou is therefore best positioned for travellers interested in working fishing villages and marine culture rather than conventional resort beaches.

Xinying Town: Fishing Culture, Mangroves and Intangible Heritage

Xinying Town (新盈镇) lies beside Houshui Bay (后水湾) and has historically been one of Lingao’s most important fishing settlements. Xinying Port (新盈港) remains central to the town’s identity.

The nearby Xinying Mangrove Wetland and Caiqiao mangrove area (彩桥红树林) form one of the county’s most important coastal ecosystems. Mangroves are distributed around Caiqiao, Hegui, Liang’ai, Nantang and Longkun villages, providing habitat for migratory waterbirds and valuable wetland scenery.

Xinying is also closely connected with Li Li Mei fishermen’s songs, whose origins are traditionally associated with the fishing communities of Xinying and Diaolou. The town continues to stage fishermen’s-song competitions, seafood events, dragon-boat traditions and local food activities.

For visitors, Xinying combines mangrove ecology, birdwatching, fishing culture, seafood and folk traditions, making it one of Lingao’s most distinctive coastal towns.

Bohou Town: Jinpai Coast and Rural Tourism

Bohou Town (博厚镇) lies along the eastern part of Lingao’s coast and the developing Jinpai Port (金牌港) region. Unlike Dongying or Lincheng, its current identity combines port-oriented economic development with rural tourism.

Earlier provincial rural-tourism development programmes identified villages including Meiban, Jialu and Lehao in Bohou as rural-tourism demonstration areas. The Hainan Coastal Scenic Highway has since strengthened Bohou’s connection with other coastal destinations.

Entering the 2026–2030 planning period, Bohou is positioning itself around port-city integration, longevity and wellness tourism, rural revitalisation and coastal development, alongside the rapid growth of the Jinpai Port Development Zone.

For tourism websites, Bohou should therefore be presented as an emerging coastal and rural tourism area, rather than claiming that it already has the same concentration of established attractions as Lincheng or Dongying.

Huangtong Town: Guyin Waterfall

Huangtong Town (皇桐镇) contains one of Lingao’s most attractive inland natural landscapes: Guyin Waterfall (古银瀑布), also known as Juren Waterfall (居仁瀑布).

Located near Juren Village, the natural waterfall drops approximately 20 metres through dense tropical vegetation. Water volume becomes especially impressive during the rainy season, when mist and forest vegetation create one of the county’s most photogenic natural scenes.

Huangtong therefore provides an inland contrast to Lingao’s coastal tourism and works particularly well for nature, countryside and photography-oriented travel.

Duowen Town: Rural Culture, Historic Education and Lotus Landscapes

Duowen Town (多文镇) is increasingly associated with agricultural tourism and historical education.

Meishan Academy / Meishan School (美山学堂) in Meishan Village has more than a century of educational history and is now incorporated into cultural-study tourism. The surrounding Meilian Lotus Industry Demonstration Base (美莲产业示范基地) combines lotus cultivation, rural landscapes and agricultural tourism. China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism included these resources in a Hainan rural cultural route in 2024.

The town has also developed Hongqi Pastoral Shared Farm (红旗田园共享农庄), offering agricultural landscapes and family activities.

Duowen is additionally famous throughout Hainan for Duowen water spinach (多文空心菜), giving food and agricultural tourism a strong local identity.

Bolian Town: Red History and Rural Heritage

Bolian Town (波莲镇) lies west of the county centre and is mainly characterised by agriculture, villages and historical resources rather than large commercial scenic areas.

Local heritage includes the former Qiongxi Reception Command Post associated with the Hainan Liberation Campaign, while older village traditions connect areas such as Sulai Village with stories surrounding Su Dongpo’s time in Hainan. Bolian has also experimented with flower-growing and agricultural sightseeing projects.

Its tourism potential therefore lies mainly in red-history study tours, traditional villages, flowers and agricultural experiences.

Heshe Town: Countryside and Agricultural Tourism

Heshe Town (和舍镇) lies in southern Lingao and has a stronger agricultural than coastal character. Xiwei Village (溪尾村) was among Hainan’s early rural-tourism demonstration communities, reflecting the town’s potential for countryside travel.

Unlike Lincheng or Dongying, Heshe does not depend on one flagship attraction. Its value lies instead in traditional rural landscapes, agriculture, village life and slow inland travel.

Nanbao Town: Rural Landscapes and Revolutionary Heritage

Nanbao Town (南宝镇) occupies the southwestern part of Lingao near Danzhou and is historically regarded as an old revolutionary-base area. Its landscape consists mainly of low hills, farmland, rubber plantations and tropical agricultural communities.

Tourism development remains limited compared with the county’s coastline. For current destination content, Nanbao is best described as an area for rural landscapes, agriculture and local revolutionary history, rather than artificially assigning it a major scenic attraction.

Jialai Town: Former State-Farm Landscape and Tropical Agriculture

Jialai Town (加来镇) is an important administrative case in Lingao. The area formerly belonged to the Hainan state-farm system as Jialai Farm (加来农场) before being transferred to Lingao County management; it is now formally one of the county’s 11 statutory towns.

Its tourism resources are primarily connected with tropical agriculture, former state-farm settlement landscapes, rural communities and countryside culture. Jialai is not currently one of Lingao’s principal sightseeing areas, but it provides useful context for understanding Hainan’s agricultural and state-farm history.

Lingao Tourism Resources by Town

Complete Township-Level Administrative Divisions of Lingao County

Lingao contains no subordinate districts, county-level cities, subdistricts or statutory townships. Its complete current township-level structure is the following 11 towns.

Administrative Totals

A useful correction for current tourism and administrative content is that older sources listing 10 towns plus Jialai Farm are outdated. Jialai is now formally Jialai Town, so the present statutory total is 11 towns.