Xiamen travel guide

Xiamen in brief Located in southern Fujian Province, Xiamen (also called Amoy) is an important coastal city and a pivotal trading harbor facing the island of Taiwan. The city is renowned for its importance as China's earliest Special Economic Zones in the 1980s, and its power of Provincial-level authority given by the Government in Beijing, as an economic administrator and local legislative power. Since then, the city has tremendously developed its own economy and has been ranked as China's second most livable city in a 2006 survey. The city of Xiamen being highly developed around its port activities, it normally received its present name literally meaning the Gate of the Grand Mansion. Its architecture has undertaken lots of specificities kept carefully intact until now, letting travelers discover today the gripping old-world charm rarely seen in other Chinese cities. History of Xiamen A pivotal commercial harbor to foreign countries Historians traced Xiamen's history back to the mid 14th century and the early Ming Dynasty, since when the city was established as a major commercial seaport as well as a base against pirates' invasions. Xiamen's harbor was later on highly used by Europeans exporting tea, the area's typical dialect (Amoy) being even said to have influenced the English and European languages in their pronunciation of Chinese words... More information about Xiamen »