Baoting

Baoting Li and Miao Autonomous County lies inland in southern Hainan, at the southern foot of Wuzhi Mountain, covering about 1,161 square kilometres with a population near 156,000 - the great majority of them Li and Miao people, which makes the county one of the best places in China to encounter those cultures in daily life rather than in a museum. Its economy leans on tourism, tropical high-yield agriculture and a small high-tech sector, producing a GDP of about 6.9 billion yuan in 2022, with rubber, areca (betel nut), coconut, mango and a famous 16,000-mu rambutan crop filling the valleys. Tourism is the county's calling card: the Yanoda Rainforest Cultural Tourism Zone with its canopy walks, the Binglanggu Li and Miao Cultural Tourism Area built around a preserved Li village and a Miao settlement, and the Qixianling Hot Spring National Forest Park, whose springs rise beneath seven jagged peaks. There is no university and no railway station in Baoting - students and travellers alike go through Sanya, about an hour away by road - but for anyone in Hainan wanting rainforest, hot springs and genuinely local food such as Shiling chicken, bamboo-tube rice and Shanlan rice wine, this quiet inland county is the place to head.

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