Hainan University, referred to as Haida for short, is located in Haikou City, Hainan Province. It is a university jointly established by the Ministry of Education and the People's Government of Hainan Province and established by the People's Government of Hainan Province and the Ministry of Finance. It is a comprehensive key university in Hainan Province and a key university supported by the "National First-class University Construction" in Hainan Province.

It was selected as a world-class discipline construction university, 2 1 1 project, excellent engineer education and training plan, excellent legal talent education and training plan, excellent agricultural and forestry talent education and training plan, basic capacity building project of central and western universities and comprehensive strength improvement project of central and western universities.

The national postgraduate program of building high-level universities, the scholarship of China government to study in China, the demonstration base of the Ministry of Education to study in China, the national college students' cultural quality education base and the national college students' innovation and entrepreneurship training program are members of the "one province, one school" national key construction university (Z 14) alliance and CDIO engineering education alliance in the central and western regions.

The school is jointly established with Tianjin University. The school's predecessor was the former South China University of Tropical Agriculture founded by 1958 and the former Hainan University founded by 1983. In August 2007, the two universities merged into the new Hainan University.