China · Guangdong
Where to Stay in Zhanjiang, Guangdong
Zhanjiang is a city of southern Guangdong in China on the Leizhou peninsula, an old French treaty lease turned great southern port, ringed by mangroves and a volcanic lake.
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Where to stay in Zhanjiang
Where you base yourself shapes the visit — here's the character of each area.
Where you stay in Zhanjiang turns on the old town or the coast. The streets of Chikan keep the French quarter, the museum, and the harbour front within a walk, and staying downtown suits anyone here for the old town. The colonial streets line the shore.
Ships ride in the harbour. Out toward the peninsula and the lake, the city gives way to the mangrove coast, the crater lake, and the road down the Leizhou peninsula. A room out of town trades the streets for the quiet mangroves, the round crater lake, and the beaches of the south.
Beaches trail on down the Leizhou peninsula. Stay downtown for the old town, or out for the coast. The port city holds the Leizhou coast.
About Zhanjiang
Zhanjiang is the port city of the Leizhou peninsula.
What is Zhanjiang known for?
On the South China Sea at the southern tip of Guangdong in China, it grew from a French colonial lease into a great port, and it keeps the old French quarter of Guangzhouwan, the deep harbour and naval base by the sea, the volcanic crater lake of Huguangyan, and the wide mangroves along its shores. The warm sea laps the coast. Mangroves fringe the bays.
What are the main landmarks in Zhanjiang?
The old French quarter is the pride of Zhanjiang. The colonial streets of Guangzhouwan in Chikan, with their cathedral and villas, stand as a mark of the French years, downtown. A crater holds a lake.
The volcanic maar of Huguangyan cradles a deep round lake nearby, while the deep harbour, the wide mangroves, and the Naozhou lighthouse mark the country around Zhanjiang.
What is the history of Zhanjiang?
Zhanjiang was once French Guangzhouwan. In eighteen ninety-eight France leased this coast from the Qing and named it Fort-Bayard, ruling it as a colony beside British Hong Kong and Portuguese Macau. The French built a town by the sea.
They raised a cathedral, offices, and villas in the Chikan quarter, and the port grew as France's window on the south China coast. China took the port back after the war. When the lease ended in nineteen forty-five, Zhanjiang returned to China and grew into a great deep-water port and naval base of the south.
The land held natural wonders. Nearby lay the volcanic crater lake of Huguangyan and the widest mangroves in the country, and Zhanjiang grew as the chief city of the Leizhou coast, keeping its old French streets, its harbour, and its mangroves. The port still works day and night.
Zhanjiang keeps its harbour on the Leizhou coast.
Where is Zhanjiang?
Zhanjiang lies at the south of Guangdong in China, on the neck of the Leizhou peninsula. The city sits on a harbour of the South China Sea, on low red land of sugarcane and mangrove, with the sea wrapping its bays and the long Leizhou peninsula reaching south toward Hainan. The sea runs warm and wide.
Mangroves line the shore.
What is the climate of Zhanjiang?
Zhanjiang has a hot, humid tropical climate. Warm weather holds all year on the coast, with heavy monsoon rains and typhoons off the sea in the summer months. Typhoons sweep in each summer.
Winter stays warm and dry.
How do you get to Zhanjiang?
Zhanjiang lies at the tip of Guangdong in China, on the way to Hainan. Fast trains run to it down the coast from Guangzhou, and highways and ferries cross to Hainan island. Ships call at the docks.
Guangzhou lies northeast up the coast.
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Updated August 2026