Ledong’s coast holds three bays in a row – Longmu, Longteng and Longqi, running from north to south – and together they form the one stretch of Hainan where the sun goes down into the water rather than up out of it. The county government describes this as one of the few west-facing beaches in China, and the local name for the effect is the Longmu sunset. Longmu Bay lies on the county’s southwest shore and looks across to Dongfang, about 45 kilometres from Basuo port and barely ten kilometres from the foot of the Jianfengling ridge; Longteng Bay spans the Huangliu and Liguo town lines; and Longqi Bay, at the southeast end, reaches across to Sanya, 65 kilometres from the city centre.
Get the measurements right and the three bays make sense. The county’s figures of 33.7 kilometres for Longmu, 20.5 for Longteng and 30.1 for Longqi are harbour frontages, not lengths of sand, so do not picture a single 33-kilometre beach. What you walk on at Longmu is closer to seven kilometres of flat white sand, with the Lingtou fishing harbour at one end and low dunes and melon fields behind. Longteng, running from the Wanglou river mouth to the salt-field outfall at Huangliu, is the least developed of the three, a stretch of plain white sand the county has long flagged for aquaculture. Longqi is the calmest: sheltered enough that the sea stays flat through the year, which is why the swim-and-stay crowd ends up there.
The reason this coast looks different from the rest of Hainan is a piece of weather geography the county likes to explain. The southeast monsoon coming off the Pacific is stopped by the Wuzhishan and Limuling ranges on the island’s eastern side, and the southwest monsoon off the Indian Ocean is held back by the Changshan mountains on the far shore, so the coast around Ledong sits in a double rain shadow: under a thousand millimetres of rain a year, against more than two thousand millimetres of evaporation. The result is what the county calls a tropical coastal desert, half sea and half fire, half desert and half rainforest, with broad fields of melon stitched into the sand country behind the beach. The dry, bright months from November into April are when this reads as a feature rather than a hazard.
Longqi Bay has become the activity end of the coast: a paragliding base there is described as one of the few all-wind flying sites in the country, launching above the water line, and the skydiving operation at Yinggehai further north drops jumpers from 4,200 metres over the salt pans and the sunset shoreline. The bays themselves need no ticket and no booking. One thing to keep separate in your head is the difference between the coast and the property behind it: the public beaches and the sunset views are open and busy, while the resort zone’s building history has been chequered, with stalled phases and a restructuring process making headlines over the years. The waterfront has kept working; some of the towers behind it have not. Rooms and rates belong to the stay column, not here.
Access is by road and, unusually for a beach this far from a city, by rail as well. The Ledong section of the island scenic highway runs 62.4 kilometres from Jianfeng town in the north to Longqi Bay in the south, opening in December 2023 and stitching the three bays into a single sunset drive; the G98 ring road offers Longmu, Huangliu and Jiusuo interchanges for the same coast. On the West Ring high-speed line, Jianfeng Station in Foluo town is the stop for Longmu and Huangliu Station sits between Longmu and Longteng, while Ledong Station at Jiusuo serves Longqi; ignore Longqi Bay East station, which is a reserved stop and not in service. Plan the day around a single fixed point, sunset, and give the bays a slow afternoon rather than an hour.
Practicalities
Tickets. Free. The three bays are open coastline, not gated parks, and the county charges nothing to walk the sand or watch the sunset. Only individual operators – paragliding, skydiving, water sports – charge, and those prices are set by the operator. Checked October 2026, subject to change.
Opening hours. The beaches are reachable at any hour, and the hour that matters is the one before sunset, when the western light comes straight in and the Longmu sunset draws the crowd. Daytime in the tropical-desert months is hot and bright, so late afternoon is also the comfortable time to be out.
Closing day. No closing day – a coast does not close. The dry season from November into April is the best window; midsummer is humid and heavy, and the sun is at its most punishing.
Getting there. Self-drive is the real option: the island scenic highway’s Ledong section links Jianfeng town to Longqi Bay through all three bays, and the G98 ring road gives Longmu, Huangliu and Jiusuo exits. By rail, Jianfeng Station in Foluo town (West Ring line, open since 30 December 2015) is closest to Longmu, Ledong Station at Jiusuo to Longqi, and Huangliu Station sits between. Jianfeng North Station, the 2024 terminus of the Sanya-Ledong tourist railway at Lingtou village in Jianfeng town, is a separate station and not the same as Jianfeng Station. Buses to the sand itself are limited, so a car or a charter is the workable plan.
flowcloud would say that Longmu is where Hainan faces the wrong way on purpose – three bays pointed at the setting sun, a desert behind a white beach, and an empty horizon the east coast cannot offer.
Getting there: Longmu, Longteng and Longqi bays run from north to south along Ledong Li Autonomous County’s west coast, Hainan, strung together by the 62.4-kilometre Ledong section of the island scenic highway and served by G98 ring-road interchanges at Longmu, Huangliu and Jiusuo; entry is free as open coastline, there are no fixed hours and no closing day, and rail access is via Jianfeng Station for Longmu or Ledong Station for Longqi (checked October 2026, subject to change).