Tunchang County
Settlers who cleared wasteland here in the late Ming hoped to prosper, giving Tunchang its name; Shixia village keeps Hai Rui's ancestral home.
A place shaped through time
Tunchang sits slightly north of the centre of Hainan, its ground sinking from southern hills to rolling uplands and terraces in the north. In the late Ming and early Qing, migrants from the southeastern coast fled war to farm this wasteland, hoping it would prosper, and the name Tunchang means exactly that. Hill basins and a monsoon climate make its slopes ideal for rubber, betel palms and southern medicinal plants. Shixia village preserves the ancestral home of Hai Rui, the upright Ming official, which is the county's most visited historic site. Forested ridges such as Wolong Mountain ring the county town of Tuncheng with a typical green landscape of central Hainan.