Yazhou Ancient City

Cultural heritage

Yazhou Ancient City stands at Yacheng town in the Yazhou District of Sanya, the southernmost prefectural seat of ancient China; Yazhou was established here from the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and from the Song onward it served as the seat of successive prefectures and counties, a history of nearly a thousand years. Surviving remnants include stretches of the city wall and gates together with the Yacheng Academy (the southernmost Confucian temple and official school), old bridges and pagodas. The academy was the heart of Yazhou's learning, nurturing many scholars, and Sanya schoolchildren still hold their "first-writing" ceremony here today. Yacheng is Hainan's first national historic-cultural town, and its conservation plan was formally approved in 2025.

Visiting: Wandering the old city, the weathered gates and wall fragments carry one back to the military and administrative stronghold of old Yazhou; stepping into the Yacheng Academy, the lattice star-gate, the Dacheng hall and the old couplets stand in solemn quiet, bearing witness to Confucian learning carried this far south. The arcade shophouses and volcanic-stone houses of the old lanes weave together the thousand-year face of Sanya that few visitors know, a sharp contrast to the modern beachside city.