Wuzhishan: Li Culture, Tea History and Rainforest Hiking

Wuzhishan brings together several themes that offer different points of focus for planning a trip: Hainan’s history and the cultures of the Li, Miao and Hui, the development of tea cultivation, and a 25-kilometer circular hike. These highlights can help guide your hotel search. First decide whether you want to focus on exhibitions, historical recreations and traditional crafts, or on hiking through the tropical rainforest landscape.

Museum and Li Brocade

In Tongshi Town, the Hainan Nationalities Museum presents Hainan’s history and the cultures of the Li, Miao and Hui. Six permanent exhibitions make up the museum’s permanent display, alongside two halls for temporary exhibitions. This brings together a consistent thematic framework and changing exhibition topics. The focus extends beyond a single tradition, connecting the island’s history with several cultural perspectives.

Li brocade offers a specific connection to traditional craftsmanship. In Tongshi Town, Liu Weitong, a city-level bearer of intangible cultural heritage for traditional Li spinning, dyeing, weaving and embroidery techniques, founded a workshop dedicated to this textile art. According to Liu Weitong, the results of plant dyeing vary depending on the raw materials, climate and customs; storing dyes for longer makes the colors darker. This draws attention not only to the finished fabric but also to the dyeing practice: materials, surroundings and tradition shape the results.

Tongshi 1988: History as an Experience

The immersive Tongshi 1988 district recreates scenes from a general store and a photo studio from the 1980s. The recreation evokes Tongshi’s former heyday as the capital of the former autonomous administrative region. Traditional bamboo and wooden instruments, Li brocade and Miao embroidery are incorporated into the visitor experience through mobile stages and workshop activities. A 2026 official report puts the number of intangible cultural heritage performances held there since its opening at more than 100. The museum presents history and cultures through exhibitions, while Tongshi 1988 instead focuses on reconstructed scenes from everyday life and stage and workshop formats.

Tea History and a Dated Snapshot

The Red Flag Tea Farm is part of the area’s tea history: it was established in 1958 and renamed State-run Tongshi Tea Farm in January 1960. This sequence shows two stages in the farm’s naming and places tea cultivation within the history of Tongshi Town. In a separate, dated scene, a tea artist served tea to visitors on a tea field in Shihui Village on January 11, 2020. These two details shed light on different aspects—the history of an operation and a specific moment of serving tea in the field.

Taiping Ring Hiking Route

The Taiping Ring Hiking Route starts in Tongshi Town, forms a loop and is 25 kilometers long in total. It follows the surrounding tropical rainforest landscape. These details provide two distinct points of reference when choosing a route: the distance describes its total length, while its focus on the landscape conveys the character of the trail. If this hike fits your travel plans, check current trail and signage conditions before setting out.

Discover more destinations: Tunchang, Danzhou, Sanya, Baisha, Dongfang, Wenchang, Haikou, Baoting

For the broader travel overview: Hainan.