Hainan Island is the largest continental marginal island in the northwestern South China Sea, which is surrounded by Cenozoic rift basins such as Qiongdongnan Basin, Yinggehai Basin, and Beibu Gulf Basin. Thus, it constitutes the major footwall of the boundary fault of these basins. Therefore, the uplift and exhumation history of the Hainan Island contains important information on basin-range coupling process and oil, ores preservation conditions. This study first reports the analyses results of apatite and zircon fission track along the Binhai fault which is the only basin-controlling fault extends into the Hainan Island. The apatite fission track ages range from 23 Ma to 40 Ma, and the average confinement track length ranges in 12.2?13.2 μm, which is relatively small. The zircon fission track ages range from 63 Ma to 82 Ma, and the single grain ages are mainly concentrated in the age groups of 82?78 Ma and 72?69 Ma, respectively. The cooling history of Hainan Island since the Late Cretaceous is generally divided into three episodes. From the Late Cretaceous to the Early Paleocene (82~63 Ma), the whole Hainan Island uplifted rapidly with a total exhumation amount of 3.33 km. During this period, the Hainan Island was jointly affected by the NW compression caused by the subduction of the Pacific plate and the expansion of the middle ridge of the ancient South China Sea, and the Baolun gold mine along the western margin of the Baisha basin was also influenced by the large-scale compressional deformation. From Early Paleocene to Middle Miocene (63?13 Ma), the samples experienced a protracted period of slow cooling, except the western side of the Binhai fault, where also records a rapid cooling from the Middle Eocene to Late Oligocene (40?24 Ma). We attributed this rapid cooling period to the drag effect caused by the accelerated subduction of the Paleo-South China Sea, and the differential uplift on both sides could be attributed to the reactivation of the Binhai fault. During this period, the coarse clasts exhumed from the Hainan Island constitute the key reservoir of the Cenozoic basin. Since the Middle Miocene (13~0 Ma), the exhumation amount is 1.93 km. The compression stress caused by the NNW wedge of the Philippine Sea plate and the long-distance effect of the India-Eurasia plate collision has caused Hainan Island to undergo strong rapid compression and exhumation during this period.