Scleractinian corals and coral reefs are not always restricted in tropical oceans. Many subtropical coral reefs and coral communities that exist near or beyond "normal" environmental limits are defined as "marginal" coral habitats. As global warming and frequent ENSO events cause the degradation of tropical reef ecosystems, debates are emerging on the potential for marginal coral habitats to serve as coral refuges. Besides, subtropical corals comparably have the function of high-resolution recording for climatic and other environmental changes. Therefore, non-reefal coral communities and coral reefs distributed in the subtropical, relatively high-latitude areas are as important in researches as their tropical counterparts in tropical oceans. Actually, however, researches associated with relatively high-latitude corals are relatively scarce. In the South China Sea, relatively high-latitude coral reefs and coral communities are mainly distributed in Weizhou Island (Guangxi Province), Daya Bay (Guangdong Province), Hong Kong, Dongshan, Taishan and Xingzi Islands (Fujian Province),Taiwan and other waters. In recent years, some scholars used biological, ecological, geological, geochemical and other research methods, focusing on "the relationship between the evolution of coral communities and global changes" and "high-resolution coral records of environmental changes",to carry out some works in the relatively high-latitude waters, for example,increasing frequency and intensity in warm and cold-stresses can explain the observed decline in growth rate of Porites colonies in Weizhou Island, the Daya Bay Porites corals had higher concentrations of metals suggesting that acute (Fe and Mn) and chronic (Zn) heavy metal contamination has occurred locally over the past 32 years, total phosphorus in coral skeletons may be an efficient proxy for seawater phosphorus variations and associated phytoplankton dynamics in eutrophic environments, and a modified method for Sr/Ca-SST calibration was suggested in marginal coral areas with extreme intra-annual SST variation. In this paper, the studying significance of the high-latitude corals was briefly descripted firstly, and then it focused on a review for responses and high-resolution records for marine environment changes in the relatively high-latitude corals from the South China Sea. The authors expect some new questions and ideas would be raised in the further study on the base of the summary of the previous works.