Beihai, city and port, southern Zhuang Autonomous Region of Guangxi, China. For a time the city was in Guangdong province, but in 1965 it became part of Guangxi. It is located on the western shore of a small peninsula on the eastern side of Qinzhou Bay on the Gulf of Tonkin, immediately south of the delta of the Nanliu River, about 12.5 miles (20 km) south of Hepu.
Beihai was opened to foreign trade in 1876. Despite its poor harbour—which is badly exposed to northerly winds and impeded by sandbanks—Beihai became a moderately important port and the principal outlet for the trade of southern and western Guangxi. Later, after Wuzhou on the Xi River and Mengzi on the Red River in Yunnan province had been opened to trade, Beihai lost much of its importance. It became no more than a minor port, with much of its foreign trade being in the hands of French trading companies. Beihai enjoyed a revival after 1937, when the Sino-Japanese War (1937–45) began, but in 1940 it itself was occupied by the Japanese.
Since 1949 Beihai has flourished as one of the most important fishing ports of southern China. Although much of the fishing fleet was destroyed during World War II, after 1945 the fishing industry was rapidly rehabilitated. After 1949 Beihai developed a shipbuilding industry for small craft and also began to manufacture cables, sails, and nets; a canning industry was established, as were plants making such various fish products as fish-liver oil, dried fish, and glue. As the nearest Chinese port to Vietnam, Beihai traditionally had strong trading links with the Vietnamese port of Haiphong. In 1984 it became one of 14 Chinese coastal cities opened to Western trade and investment. With the completion of the Nanning-Kunming rail line and a railway between the city and Nanning to the northwest in the late 1990s, Beihai once again became an important seaport for the province and for the southwestern interior of China. In addition, expressways opened in the early 2000s have connected the city with both Nanning and Zhanjiang to the east in Guangdong province. Two new deepwater seaports on the southern shore of the peninsula, Shibuling and Tieshan, are now under the administration of the city as well. Industries for food processing and engineering and for the manufacture of petrochemicals and electronics have been developing quickly since the 1990s. It is also an important marine fishing base in the province. Pop. (2002 est.) 240,640.