Guangdong Zhanjiang Mangrove Forest National Nature Reserve

The Guangdong Zhanjiang Mangrove Forest National Nature Reserve in the city of Zhanjiang is located along the 1500-kilometer coastline of the Leizhou Peninsula, the southernmost tip of the Chinese mainland.

Mangroves are shrubs or trees that grow in shallow coastal waters. Covering a total area of 20,278.8 hectares, the reserve is home to 7,228 hectares of mangrove forest, which is roughly 33 percent of the area of China's mangrove forests and 79 percent of Guangdong province's mangrove forests, making it the largest natural reserve of coastal mangroves in China.

In January 2002, the reserve was designated as a Ramsar Wetlands of International Importance and it is a crucial area for national biodiversity conservation and international wetland ecosystem conservation.

The reserve is a waypoint on the East Asian-Australasian Flyway. It boasts 312 species of birds, including 66 species listed on the national key protection list. After years of continuous monitoring, the bird populations and numbers in the reserve are on the rise.

Furthermore, the reserve holds the largest wintering population of the critically endangered shorebird species, the spoon-billed sandpiper (Eurynorhynchus pygmeus) in China, with a record of 43 individuals found in Leizhou Bay, Zhanjiang in 2016. The global population of the bird is less than 700, making the reserve an essential site for their conservation. The reserve also monitors rare global waterfowl species such as oriental storks, Chinese crested terns, relict gulls, black-faced spoonbills, and Chinese black-headed gulls.