Xiamen

Xiamen is a port city in Fujian province in southeastern China, on an island in the Taiwan Strait at the mouth of the Jiulong River. Western traders knew it as Amoy, after the local name of the city.

A town with walls was built on the island in the late 14th century under the Ming. In the 17th century Koxinga made Xiamen his base before he sailed to Taiwan. The port was opened to foreign trade in the 1840s, and foreign merchants and consuls built their houses on a small island across the harbor. Tan Kah Kee, a rubber merchant who made his fortune in Singapore, founded Xiamen University in 1921 and the schools of Jimei village on the mainland. Xiamen became one of the first special economic zones of China in 1980.

The Port of Xiamen has container terminals on the island and along the mainland shore of the bay. King Long, based in the city, builds buses and coaches. Xtep makes sports shoes and clothing from its head office in Xiamen, and Meitu, also based in the city, makes apps for retouching selfies.

Gulangyu has no cars, and its villas, churches and old consulates, with the many pianos once kept in its homes, are listed by UNESCO as a historic international settlement. A museum of pianos on the island shows instruments collected by a local family abroad. Nanputuo Temple, founded in the Tang dynasty, stands at the foot of Wulao Peak beside the campus of Xiamen University. Shacha noodles, in a peanut and shrimp broth, and fried oysters with egg are common dishes in the old streets near Zhongshan Road.