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Explore the region
About Denglou Cape
Denglou Cape (灯楼角) is a headland in Jiaowei Township (角尾乡), Xuwen County (徐闻县), Zhanjiang (湛江), regarded as the southernmost point of the Chinese mainland. Its sandy tip marks the dividing line between the Qiongzhou Strait (琼州海峡) and the Beibu Gulf (北部湾).
The cape juts into the sea like an ox horn, and older names for it were Jinan (极南, "the extreme south") and Jinnan (尽南, "where the south ends"). Two currents meet off the point: the strait's tide runs from east to west, while the gulf's runs from north to south. When the swell is up, the two streams strike each other and throw up what are called V-shaped waves. The sea next to the cape lies within the Xuwen Coral Reef National Nature Reserve (徐闻珊瑚礁国家级自然保护区), and on bright days corals can be seen from a boat on the water.
In 1950 the People's Liberation Army set out from this shore for the Hainan Island Campaign (海南岛战役). The site, at Xujialiao Village (许家寮村), was listed by Xuwen County on 29 April 2005, and on 23 July 2022 it became a Guangdong provincial protected cultural relic under the name Liberation of Hainan Embarkation Point (解放海南启渡点). A blockhouse on the cape is the former command post for the crossing to Hainan.
Two lighthouses now stand on the point. A French engineer built the Guanjiaowei Lighthouse (关滘尾灯塔) here in 1894; it was pulled down in 1942. Xuwen County put up a 15 m iron-frame light on a concrete base over the ruins in 1953, and in 1979 this was replaced by a round tower of stone. In 1994 the Guangdong Maritime Safety Administration (广东省海事局) added a hexagonal tower 36 m high next to it.
What to look for
- The horn-shaped sandbar at the tip, where strait and gulf currents meet
- "V-shaped waves" thrown up when the two currents collide
- The round stone lighthouse of 1979 and the 36 m hexagonal lighthouse of 1994
- The Liberation of Hainan Embarkation Point (解放海南启渡点), a provincial protected site from 2022
- The blockhouse that served as the command post for the 1950 crossing
- Coral in the Xuwen Coral Reef National Nature Reserve waters off the cape
Location & getting there
Getting to Denglou Cape
- Search for 灯楼角 with 湛江市 and 徐闻县.
Find Denglou Cape
灯楼角 · 徐闻县
No reliable map pin yet: search by the Chinese name.
Sources & visit information
Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-23. Opening hours, admission and access arrangements are not covered; confirm current visitor information with the site.
Some facts checked against Wikipedia contributors, "灯楼角" · CC BY-SA 4.0.