Sanya
— — where China meets the tropics.
Not only on a wall.
“The southernmost city on China's island province, on the same latitude band as Hawaii. Sanya sits along three broad bays, Yalong, Dadonghai, and Sanya, each lined with white sand and warm water. The climate runs tropical the year through; January nights stay above sixty Fahrenheit. The Wuzhizhou and Xidao islands lie offshore. In winter the beaches fill with northern visitors trading frost for palms.
Sanya, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Sanya occupies the southern coast of Hainan, China's island province in the South China Sea, at roughly 18.25 degrees north. That is near the latitude of Honolulu and Mexico City. The municipality counts roughly 1.03 million residents across four central districts and a large rural hinterland that climbs into the Limuling mountains. The city sits 290 kilometres south of the provincial capital Haikou, along the G98 ring expressway. Three crescent bays, Yalong, Dadonghai, and Sanya, define the urban shoreline, with the offshore islets Wuzhizhou and Xidao closing the eastern view.
Sanya sits inside the tropics, the only major mainland-administered Chinese city to do so. Average monthly highs hold above 25°C every month, and January nights rarely drop below 18°C, a draw for northern Chinese travellers escaping the Beijing winter. The dry season runs November through April; the wet season May through October brings afternoon thunder and the western Pacific's typhoon track. Coconut and areca palms grow along every shoreline road, and the inland Yanoda rainforest preserves a slice of the original Hainan jungle.
Yalong Bay, on Sanya's eastern coastline, is the largest of the three crescents, about seven kilometres of white sand opening onto the South China Sea. Dadonghai sits closer to the old downtown and is the busiest swimming beach. Sanya Bay runs nineteen kilometres along the western shoreline and faces the sunset. The water reads pale aqua over coral sand close in and turns deep blue past the offshore islets; visibility runs around twenty metres on calm days at the Wuzhizhou reef.