This paper presents pollen and spore data from sediments of core 18323 on the continental shelf of the southern South China Sea. The 5.4 m long profile covers the last 31 000 years including the late stage of marine oxygen isotope (MIS) stage 3. The study reveals that the lowland rainforest covered the emerged southern continental shelf of the south China sea before the Last Glacial Maximum and that the lowland rainforest diminished and Herbaceae expanded on the adjacent islands during the Last Glacial Maximum, indicating cooling and drying during the ice age. During the termination and the Holocene, the expansion of mangroves and lowland rainforest shows warming of the climate, rising of the sea level and the submerging of the shelf.