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Beihai is also the ancient Chinese name for Lake Baikal

Beihai
Location of Beihai within Guangxi
Chinese:	北海
Literal meaning:	North sea
Transliterations Mandarin - Hanyu Pinyin: Běihǎi - Wade-Giles: Pei-hai Yue (Cantonese) - Jyutping: bak1 hoi2

Beihai, often called Bakhoi, is a prefecture-level city of Guangxi, China. Beihai means "north sea" in Chinese, meaning that the place is a seaport on the north shore of the Gulf of Tonkin. Beihai has a large shipyard and is reputed to still be a pirate habour. Beihai is known within China as a travel destination. While Beihai does suffer from pollution as much of China does, it is not nearly as severe as most other parts of the country. It has a fairly active nightlife also containing western style bars such as the Kangaroo Bar on West Beibuwan Lu (West Beibuwan Avenue) which is extremely popular amongst the local residents, espescially for Gerry's famous pizza. Accomodations in Beihai are affordable and food ranges from traditional Chinese to KFC and McDonald's. The dialect spoken throughout Beihai is "Beihua" a Cantonese dialect, although Mandarin is also known, or at least understood, by most of the population.^{[citation needed]}

• Area: 3337 km², 957 km² urban centre
• Population: 1450,000 (2001), 135,500 in urban centre (estimated 2006: 305,000)
• Municipal seat: Haicheng District
• Geographic coordinates: 108°50′45″ - 109°47′28″ East, 21°29′ - 21°55′34″ North

It governs the islands of Weizhou and Xieyang, and is north of Hainan Island.

Contents 1 Subdivision 2 History 3 Demographics 4 Administration 5 Sister cities 6 Miscellanea 7 External links

Beihai contains three districts and one county, which are subdivided into five urban sub-districts, 23 towns, 3 townships, 87 neighborhood committees, 343 village committees. (see also Political divisions of China#Levels)

• Haicheng District
• Yinhai District
• Tieshangang District
• Hepu County

After the 1876 Sino-British Treaty of Yantai, eight Western nations (UK, US, Germany, Austria-Hungary, France, Italy, Portugal, and Belgium) set up embassies, hospitals, churches, schools, and maritime customs. Today, 15 of these western buildings remain in Beihai. It officially became an international tourist spot (旅遊對外開放城市) in 1982.

Beihai is dominated by Han Chinese, with a few minorities such as ethnic Zhuang.

• December 4, 1949: Beihai became a Communist Party of China town of Hepu County.
• January 1951: a province-administered city of Guangdong
• May 1951: entrusted to Guangxi
• March 1952: officially administered by Guangxi
• May 1955: Administered by Guangdong again
• 1956: reduced to a county-level city
• 1958: reduced to Beihai People's Commune of Hepu County
• 1959: county-class town
• 1964: restored to county-class city
• June 1965: Administered by Guangxi again
• October 1983: restored to prefecture-level city

• Suva, Fiji
• Gold Coast, Australia
• Tulsa, US
• Yatsushiro, Japan

Beihai has a great higher high tides at September 1, with the tides being 5 metres (16 feet). Most ports have around 2 metres of higher high tide; Honolulu has 0.5 metre.

• Beihai tourism site
• Official site
• Tourism Introduce site

v • d • e Prefecture-level divisions of Guangxi
Prefecture-level cities: Baise • Beihai • Chongzuo • Fangchenggang • Guigang • Guilin • Hechi • Hezhou • Laibin • Liuzhou • Nanning • Qinzhou • Wuzhou • Yulin List of Guangxi County-level divisions

v • d • e Economic Development Zones of the People's Republic of China
The Original Four Special Economic Zones Shenzhen | Zhuhai | Shantou | Xiamen
New Open Development Zones Hainan Province | Dalian | Qingdao | Qinhuangdao | Lianyungang | Pudong | Yantai | Zhanjiang | Ningbo | Wenzhou | Nantong | Fuzhou | Guangzhou | Beihai

Coordinates: 21°28′N 109°06′E / 21.467, 109.1