Floating maze: Discovering Hainan's 500-year-old Tanka fishing village

Lingshui Li Autonomous County in Hainan Province is home to one of the region's Tanka communities. The Tanka people, also known as the Danjia, have traditionally lived on sampans and sustained themselves through fishing in the coastal waters of southern China. Over generations in Hainan, they have cultivated a distinct culture deeply rooted in their aquatic lifestyle and reflected in their language, customs, beliefs and broader ways of life.

From above, the community's floating settlement at Xincun Fishing Port resembles a sprawling maze – a network of connected rafts and enclosures dotted with small huts and linked by narrow wooden walkways. Here, the Tanka communities continue to live and work on fish-breeding rafts, maintaining a fishing tradition that has endured for over five centuries.