How are the license plate letters arranged in Hainan Province?
3 Answers
The arrangement of license plate letters in Hainan Province is as follows: Qiong A for Haikou, Qiong B for Sanya, Qiong C for Qionghai, Qiong D for Wuzhishan, Qiong E for Yangpu Development Zone, etc. Here is some related information about Hainan Province's license plates: 1. Hainan Province, a provincial-level administrative region of the People's Republic of China, is abbreviated as "Qiong" and has Haikou as its capital. Hainan is located at the southernmost part of China, bordered by the Qiongzhou Strait to the north with Guangdong Province, facing Vietnam across the Beibu Gulf to the west, and overlooking Taiwan Province across the South China Sea to the east. 2. A license plate is an identification number for a vehicle, just like an ID number for a person. For example, a car with a license plate from Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, would have "Yue" representing Guangdong Province and "A" representing Guangzhou, so "Yue A" is the license plate code for Guangzhou. 3. When the license plate number exceeds 100,000, letters such as A, B, C, etc., are used instead. Specifically, A represents 100,000, B represents 110,000, C represents 120,000, with the last letter Z representing 330,000. However, the letters I and O are avoided to prevent confusion with the numbers 1 and 0.
I remember that the license plate letter sequence in Hainan Province is mainly determined based on administrative divisions. Simply put, the first letter represents different cities or regions. Qiong A is definitely Haikou City, as it’s the provincial capital; Qiong B is Sanya City, a major tourist hotspot; Qiong C covers other major county-level cities like Qionghai, Danzhou, and Wuzhishan; Qiong D is the Yangpu Economic Development Zone, specifically handling port-related business. This sequencing has been in use since the 1990s, when it was implemented to facilitate traffic management and vehicle registration, prioritizing larger cities. I’ve also seen some old license plates, which haven’t changed much, but for new energy vehicles, the letters might be green to indicate eco-friendly cars—though Hainan still maintains this basic order. As someone who’s been driving for over 20 years, I find this system quite intuitive, especially when spotting B-plated cars on highways, knowing they’re part of the tourist flow from Sanya.
When I first started learning to drive, I was particularly curious about how license plate letters were arranged. In Hainan, for example, Qiong A is for the main urban area of Haikou, Qiong B is for the tourist hotspot Sanya, Qiong C covers many smaller cities like Wenchang and Wanning, which are grouped under one letter for convenience; Qiong D is reserved for the Yangpu Development Zone. The order is quite logical, with the provincial capital first, major cities second, and others following. In daily driving, A and B plates are the most common, especially near tourist attractions, while C and D are relatively rarer. I once drove along the island’s ring road, and every time I saw different letters, I’d recall their meanings—a fun little tidbit. A friend also mentioned that for new energy vehicle plates, the letters remain the same, but the color changes to green, highlighting Hainan’s efforts to promote eco-friendly vehicles.
