Typhoon Saomai, known in the Philippines as Super Typhoon Juan, was considered the most powerful typhoon on record to strike the east coast of the People's Republic of China. It was the eighth tropical storm, fifth typhoon, and third super typhoon of the 2006 Pacific typhoon season recognized by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center. According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, Saomai was the seventh tropical storm and fifth typhoon of the season. The name "Saomai" was submitted by Vietnam, and is from the Vietnamese word for "morning star", a reference to the planet Venus.

A typhoon is a tropical cyclone that develops between 180° and 100°E in the Northern Hemisphere and which produces sustained hurricane-force winds of at least 119 km/h (74 mph). This region is referred to as the Northwestern Pacific Basin, accounting for almost one third of the world's tropical cyclones. The term hurricane refers to a tropical cyclone in the north central and northeast Pacific, and the north Atlantic. In all of the preceding regions, weaker tropical cyclones are called tropical storms. For organizational purposes, the northern Pacific Ocean is divided into three regions: the eastern, central, and western. The Regional Specialized Meteorological Center (RSMC) for tropical cyclone forecasts is in Japan, with other tropical cyclone warning centres for the northwest Pacific in Hawaii, the Philippines, and Hong Kong. Although the RSMC names each system, the main name list itself is coordinated among 18 countries that have territories threatened by typhoons each year.