The Li ( 黎 ; pinyin: Lí ) or Hlai are a minority ethnic group, the vast majority of whom live off the southern coast of mainland China on Hainan Island, where they are the largest minority ethnic group.

They speak their own Hlai language, a member of the Tai – Kadai language family, but most can understand or speak Hainanese and Mandarin — and it is also common for Li people to learn and speak Cantonese because many Li in Hainan relocate to Cantonese-speaking areas in southern mainland China near Hainan such as Guangzhou and Hong Kong.

The vast majority of Austronesian languages are non-tonal, but a small number, for example Ma ' ya ( which also has lexical stress ) have developed tone, and also the Tsat language has developed tone probably as a result of areal linguistic effects and contact with Chinese, Hlai / Li, and the other tonal languages of Hainan.

Hlai ( 黎 ) people living on Hainan island were called Luoyue ( 雒越 ) during the western Han Dynasty.

Unusually for a Malayo-Polynesian language, Tsat has developed into a solidly tonal language, probably as a result of areal linguistic effects and contact with Chinese, Hlai / Li, and the other tonal languages of Hainan.

As noted by Li and Zhou, Gelao shares much vocabulary with the Hlai and Ong Be languages, suggesting contact with Pre-Hlai speakers before their migration to Hainan.

* the Li ( Hlai ) and Cun people of China

* The Tai – Kadai family: several languages spoken by the Zhuang, the Buyei, the Dai people, the Dong people, and the Hlai ( Li people ).

* Hlai / Li, Lí, 黎

Nevertheless, other natives of the island such as Li ( Hlai ) ( 黎族 ), Miao ( 苗族 ), and Utsuls also use the term.

Parts of China's northernmost province Heilongjiang has a subarctic climate ; its southernmost part, Hainan Island ( an island away from mainland China ), has a tropical climate.

* Ong Be ( Hainan ; Lin ' gao ( 临高 ) in Chinese )

*** Charlie Soong 宋嘉樹 / 宋嘉树 ( 1863-1918 ; Wenchang, Hainan ; Hakka pronunciation: Soong Ka Su ), Financier and staunch supporter in the early days of Kuomintang ; Father of the Soong Sisters, who along with their husbands, were the most influential figures of China in the early 20th century

*** Soong Ai-ling 宋藹齡 / 宋蔼龄 ( 1890-1973 ; Wenchang, Hainan ; born in Shanghai ; Hakka pronunciation: Soong Oi Lin ), Eldest of the Soong Sisters ; Wife of H H Kung

*** Soong Ching-ling 宋慶齡 / 宋庆龄 ( 1893-1981 ; Wenchang, Hainan ; born in Kunshan, Jiangsu ; Hakka pronunciation: Soong Khin Lin ), Second of the Soong Sisters ; Wife of Sun Yat-sen ; Honorary President of the People's Republic of China, 1981

*** Soong May-ling 宋美齡 / 宋美龄 ( 1898-2003 ; Wenchang, Hainan ; Hakka pronunciation: Soong Mui Lin ), Youngest of the Soong Sisters ; Wife of Chiang Kai-shek

*** T. V. Soong 宋子文 ( 1894-1971 ; Wenchang, Hainan ; born in Shanghai ; Hakka pronunciation: Soong Tse Vun ), Premier of the Republic of China, 1930, 1945 – 1947

On 17 June 2008, the Civil Aviation Administration of China announced that the 18 return flights available to Chinese airlines will be apportioned such that Air China and Hainan Airlines will fly to Taiwan from Beijing with four return flights and two return flights respectively ; China Eastern Airlines and Shanghai Airlines will fly from Shanghai to Taiwan with four return flights and two return flights respectively ; China Southern Airlines fly depart for Taiwan from Guangzhou for four return flights per week, and Xiamen Airlines will connect Xiamen with Taiwan with two weekly return flights.

) and had taken a very liberal interpretation of the economic and trade regulations for Hainan and thirteen coastal cities ; the regulations did not mention on prohibiting the re-selling of second-hand goods.

During the Japanese occupation of Hainan ( 1939 – 1945 ), the Li suffered heavily.

Li people are the original inhabitants of Hainan.

The Li people mainly reside in the nine cities and counties in the middle and southern part of Hainan – the cities of Sanya, Wuzhishan and Dongfang, the Li autonomous counties of Baisha, Lingshui, Ledong, Changjiang, and the ' Li and Miao Autonomous Counties of Qiongzhong and Baoting '.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, large numbers of Han Chinese from Fujian and Guangdong began migrating to Hainan, pushing the Li into the highlands in the southern half of the island.

The Communists and the Li natives fought a vigorous guerrilla campaign against the Japanese occupation of Hainan ( 1939 – 45 ), but in retaliation over one third of the male population were killed by the Japanese.

This view of Baoting Li and Miao Autonomous County, near the south coast of Hainan is typical of the inland countryside.

Fan Chengda wrote in History of Local Administration in Guangxi: " On the island ( Hainan island ) there is a Limu Mountain ; different groups of aborigines lived around it, calling themselves Li.

* Changjiang Li Autonomous County ( 昌江黎族自治县 ), Hainan

* Hainan: 50, 000 ( known as Miao but ethnically Yao and Li )

** Heping, Qiongzhong County, in Qiongzhong Li and Miao Autonomous County, Hainan

Over the next few years, Emperor Xuānzong purged those officials he considered sympathetic to Li Deyu, and further pursued charges against Li Deyu based on the execution of the minor official Wu Xiang ( 吳湘 ) on charges that should not have warranted death, which occurred because Li Deyu was resentful of Wu Xiang's uncle Wu Wuling ( 吳武陵 ); Li Deyu was repeatedly demoted and sent farther and farther away from Chang ' an, eventually dying in exile around the new year 850 in Yai Prefecture ( 崖州, in modern Haikou, Hainan ).

" Hainanese " is also used to describe the language of the Li people living in Hainan, but generally refers to the Chinese dialect spoken in Hainan.

The Paracel Islands, also called Xisha Islands () in Chinese and Hoàng Sa Islands ( Quần đảo Hoàng Sa ) in Vietnamese, is a group of islands whose ownership is disputed by China, Vietnam and Taiwan, however is currently under the administration of Hainan Province within the People's Republic of China.

The Soong Sisters ( Traditional Chinese: 宋家姐妹, pinyin: Sòngjiā Jiěmèi, or 宋氏三姐妹 ) were three Hainan Chinese women who were, along with their husbands, amongst China's most significant political figures of the early 20th century.

* 1098: the Dongpo Academy of Hainan, China is built in honor of the Song Dynasty Chinese official and poet Su Shi, who was exiled there for criticizing reforms of the New Policies Group.

Chinatowns in Asia are widespread with a large concentration of overseas Chinese in East Asia and Southeast Asia and ethnic Chinese whose ancestors came from southern China – particularly the provinces of Guangdong, Fujian, and Hainan – and settled in countries such as Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam centuries ago — starting as early as the Tang Dynasty, but mostly notably in the 17th through the 19th centuries ( during the reign of the Qing Dynasty ), and well into the 20th century.

The Chinese term 內地, meaning the inland but still translated mainland in English, is commonly applied by SAR governments to represent non-SAR areas of PRC, including Hainan and coastal regions of mainland China, such as " Constitutional and Mainland Affairs " ( 政制及內地事務局 ) and Immigration Departments.

Chinese students in Haikou City, Hainan Province

A small group fled northward to the Chinese island of Hainan where they are known today as the Utsuls.

This jammer has been dubbed the Chinese Fire Dragon Jammer and purportedly comes from Hainan Island which is located in the Gulf of Tonkin and is a part of the People's Republic of China.

Hainan Province is the largest Special Economic Zone laid out by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in the late 1980s.

Hainan Island first enters written Chinese history in 110 BC, when the Han Dynasty established a military garrison there following the arrival of General Lu Bode ( 路博德 ).

At the time of the Song Dynasty ( 980-1279 ), Hainan became part of Guangxi Province, and for the first time large numbers of Han Chinese arrived, settling mostly in the north.

In 1906, the Chinese Republican leader Sun Yat-sen proposed that Hainan should become a separate province although this did not happen until 1988.

From March to May 1950, the Landing Operation on Hainan Island captured the island for the Chinese communists.

Hence, while many observers of the Chinese civil war thought that the fall of Hainan Island to the Communists would be followed shortly by the fall of Taiwan Island, the lack of any communist guerrilla force on Taiwan Island and its sheer distance from the mainland made this impossible, as did the arrival of the US 7th fleet in the Taiwan Strait after the outbreak of the Korean War in June.

Mǐn or Miin (; BUC: ) is the name of a broad group of Chinese languages spoken by 60 million people in the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian as well as by migrants from this province in Guangdong ( around Chaozhou-Swatou, or Chaoshan area, and the Leizhou peninsula ), Hainan, three counties in southern Zhejiang, and Zhoushan archipelago off Ningbo, and some towns in Liyang and Jiangyin city in Jiangsu province, and Taiwan.

The Southern Min languages, or Min Nan (), are a family of Chinese languages spoken in Taiwan and in parts of Mainland China such as southern Fujian, eastern Guangdong, Hainan, and southern Zhejiang.

An ethnic Chinese, Chinese name: 凌绪光 ( Ling Xu Guang ), who hails from Luang Prabang with ancestry from Hainan, he was a protégé of Kaysone Phomvihane.