Pinglu Canal Map: Location, Route and Lock Hubs

The canal lies in southern Guangxi, crossing two cities. Its northern starting point is Pingtangkou, on the Xijin reservoir near Hengzhou (a county-level city of Nanning), where the Xijiang trunk waterway meets the canal. From there the channel runs generally south along the Qinjiang river valley, passing Lingshan County in Qinzhou, and reaches the sea at Qinzhou Port on the Beibu Gulf (Gulf of Tonkin).

In plain terms: the canal is a waterway cutting south from the Xijiang river system straight to the coastline of southern China, facing Vietnam and the rest of ASEAN across the gulf.

To the north, it joins the Xijiang waterway, Guangxi's main inland shipping artery with connections toward Yunnan, Guizhou and China's southwest. To the south, it opens into the Beibu Gulf at Qinzhou Port, one of the core ports of the Beibu Gulf port group. Before the canal, Guangxi's river cargo could only reach the sea eastward via Guangzhou; vessels can now sail south directly.

From upstream to downstream, the canal steps down through three navigation hubs — Madao (the controlling hub in the Nanning section), Qishi (mid-route) and Qingnian (downstream, toward Qinzhou) — each with twin-line ship locks.

The canal discharges into the Beibu Gulf near Qinzhou Port. Per the Ministry of Transport, China's first "equivalent Class-A navigation area" has been designated in the river-sea transition zone of Qinzhou Bay; inland vessels that meet the relevant conditions can sail via the canal into these waters and berth directly at Qinzhou's seaport terminals for cargo handling, without transshipment.

An interactive map is available for the main route and key locations — tap a hub along the channel for details. The underlying route graphic is a schematic, not an engineering or navigation chart.