Zhuhai Fishing Girl, Coastal sculpture in Xianglu Bay, China.

The Fishing Girl is a granite sculpture composed of 70 stone pieces that portrays a young woman raising a pearl toward the sky. The artwork stands on a rock formation in a bay and commands the waterfront landscape with its presence.

In 1979, as China prepared the Zhuhai Special Economic Zone, first party secretary Wu Jianmin called for a city emblem. Sculptor Pan He of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts proposed a fisherwoman instead of the male figures first sketched, and the statue was completed in 1982. Its roughly 200,000-yuan cost and its subject drew public criticism before the work became Zhuhai's symbol.

The figure originates from a regional legend about a dragon king's daughter who lived as a fisher girl and loved a mortal man. This story shapes how locals and visitors understand the sculpture and the meaning they attach to it today.

The statue stands on a boulder in Xianglu Bay, southeast of Zhuhai, and is reached via Qinglu Middle Road. Bus lines 9, 99 and L1 stop at the Zhuhai Fishing Girl station. A shore boardwalk gives close views, admission is free, and the nearby park is planted with ginkgo, white pine, elm and locust trees.

The pearl held aloft is made of stainless steel, not stone, and 1.5 tonnes of steel inside the figure counterbalance its 10-tonne granite body. The original design placed the woman on a fish, but the fish was dropped when carving it proved too difficult. The statue was designated a municipal cultural relic in 2011.