Daxiao Dongtian

A western Sanya coast of named rocks, protected inscriptions and a cave whose story reaches back to the Song period.

Daxiao Dongtian lies on Sanya’s western coast near Yazhou Bay, Nanshan and Yazhou Old Town. Its named stone features include Stone Ship, Little Cave Heaven, Sea and Mountain Wonders and the Longevity inscription; Sanya’s tourism bureau says these are protected municipal heritage. The site’s name and history are bound to a natural opening in rock and to the words people placed beside it. The bureau dates development to the Southern Song and attributes the “Little Cave Heaven” inscription to prefect Mao Kui in 1247. That account gives the coast a recorded human layer without erasing its geology.

The carved characters 小洞天 at Nanshan Dongtian Park, Sanya.

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Names Cut into a Western Coast

Daxiao Dongtian’s protected rocks and inscriptions preserve how people named a coastal landscape over time.

Photo credits and rights

The carved characters 小洞天 at Nanshan Dongtian Park, Sanya.Mkckim · CC BY-SA 3.0 Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗ Retained source: Wikimedia standard 1280-pixel thumbnail; upstream full original was not downloaded. WebP derivatives were not enlarged.