Twenty-eight-year-old Feng´s ascent to the summit comes thanks to a nervy one-shot victory over Moriya Jutanugarn after the Thai´s birdie try on the 72nd hole lipped out, to the delight of the home crowd on the southern Chinese island of Hainan.
Feng´s fellow Chinese players showered the trailblazer in water on the 18th green at Jian Lake Blue Bay Golf Club.
She told LPGA.com: "I´m really, really excited and very proud of myself and I think it´s special because I won this tournament to become world number one.
"I finished first in China, so I actually claimed the world number one in front of all the people at home," said Feng, who is from the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou and turned professional in 2007.
Feng, who also captured last week´s TOTO Japan Classic title, added: "Hopefully there will be more Chinese getting on the tours and more world number ones coming up from China.
It is also a third victory of the season for her and ninth career LPGA win, one of those a major.
As well as being China´s first number one, she was also the country´s first winner on the LPGA Tour (2012 Wegman´s LPGA Championship).
Her rise to the top was widely celebrated in Chinese media, but the Beijing government has an ambivalent attitude towards golf, which is traditionally viewed in China as bourgeois.
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