An aerial view of the Yinggehai Salt Field in Ledong Li autonomous county. [Photo/VCG]

Land Resources
Hainan province covers a total land area of 3.5113 million hectares, including 121,600 hectares of wetlands, 484,200 hectares of arable land, 1.222 million hectares of orchards,1.1553 million hectares of forest land and 17,900 hectares of grassland.

Crop Resources
Major food crops in Hainan include paddy rice, upland rice and Shanlan rice (a traditional upland rice variety), as well as sweet potatoes, cassava, taro and various beans. Main cash crops include sugarcane, peanuts, sesame and tea.

Hainan is rich in tropical fruits such as mango, banana, pineapple, lychee, longan, dragon fruit, citrus, orange, pomelo, jackfruit and rambutan.

In 2022 alone, over 450 premium varieties of germplasm resources were introduced, including ice cream fruit (a tropical fruit resembling apples), finger lime, edible bird's nest fruit, mammee apple (a tropical fruit resembling sweet potatoes and shaped like rugby balls), durian, sugar apple and durian jackfruit, with a total planting area of 4,666.67 hectares.

Hainan grows over 100 types of vegetables, with local specialties like water spinach, winged beans, sweet potato leaves and wild vegetables from Wuzhi Mountain. Tropical crops are also abundant, with large-scale cultivation of rubber, coconut, areca nut, pepper and coffee.

Plant Resources
Hainan has fast-growing vegetation and a wide variety of plant species, making it the natural habitat of tropical rainforests and monsoon forests.

A total of 127 species of wild plants in Hainan are listed under Class I and II National Key Protected Plants.

Tropical forests are mainly distributed across Wuzhi Mountain, Jianfeng Mountains, Bawang Mountains, Diaoluo Mountain and Limu Mountain, with Wuzhi Mountain preserving large areas of untouched primary rainforest.

Animal Resources
By the end of 2022, Hainan was home to 698 species of terrestrial vertebrates with 23 species endemic to Hainan. There are 162 species of wild animals listed under Class I and II National Key Protected Wild Animals.

Hainan is also home to rare and precious species, such as the Hainan gibbon and sambar deer. Other valuable species include sambar, macaques and Asian black bears. Notably, the Hainan gibbon population has recovered to six groups with 37 individuals.

Southern Medicinal Herbs Resources
Known as a "natural medicine treasury," Hainan is famous for its four major southern medicines: areca nut, amomum villosum (sharen), alpinia oxyphylla (yizhi) and morinda officinalis (bajitian).

More than 30 types of southern medicinal herbs are cultivated, with areca nut having the largest planting area.

Marine Resources
Hainan's marine resources are characterized by extensive fishing grounds, high species diversity, rapid growth and a long fishing season, making it an ideal base for developing tropical marine fisheries in China.

There are over 800 species of marine organisms, including more than 600 fish species, with over 40 major commercially valuable marine fish species.

Sea Salt Resources
Hainan Island is a natural salt farm with pristine seawater, rich minerals and a long-standing artisanal salt-making tradition, producing the nationally recognized Hainan Island Salt, a product with national geographical indication status.

Hainan has two major salt fields: the Dongfang Salt Field and the Yinggehai Salt Field, the latter being one of China's three largest salt fields.