International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) model is one of the most important ionospheric experienced models. But it has not evaluated the ability of using the model to predict the Ionosphere over East Asia, especially over low latitude Hainan region during a very long period yet. In this paper, based on the ionospheric F2 layer critical frequency (foF2) data observed by digisonde DPS-4D at Hainan station (19.5o N, 109.1o E) at nearly quiet time during a solar cycle period from 2002 to 2012, we investigate the diurnal, seasonal and annual variations of the monthly median values of foF2, and compare them with IRI -2012 model predictions. The main results show: 1) the observed foF2 are obvious dependence on solar activity, i.e., they vary with solar activity. Moreover, the winter anomaly and semiannual anomaly occur as well. 2) Though IRI-2012 model results can show the basic features of monthly median foF2 over Hainan, there are in details many deviations on local time, seasonal and annual variations in model predictions and observed ones. They exist on the following aspects: IRI model underestimates in low solar activity and overestimates in the decreasing year of solar activity. While in high solar activity IRI model underestimates in equinox months and overestimates in winter and summer. Most of the deviation percentage rates (R) on the predicting foF2 with observed ones are in ±20%. The larger Rs mainly occur on 0500-0800 LT, which is similar to the previous studies. The current results will be very valuable for further improvement of IRI-2012 in foF2 prediction aspect over Chinese low latitude region.