China Top Travel

Quanzhou is a prefecture-level city in southeastern Fujian province. It borders all other prefecture-level cities in Fujian but two (Ningde and Nanping) and faces the Taiwan Strait. Its coordinates is about 24.55 degrees north latitude, 118.35 degrees east longitude.

It covers an area of 11,015 square kilometers.

Area code: 0595
Postal code: 362000

It has a population of 769 million.

Quanzhou is situated in the subtropical part of China. It belongs to maritime monsoon climate. The weather is temperate all year round. Non-frost day is about 360. The annual mean temperature is 20.7 degrees Celsius; annual precipitation is about 1200 mm.

Since the realization of the policy of reformation and opening, great changes have taken place in Quanzhou. Its economic summation has leapt to the front row among the nine municipal cities in the province. Its fulfilled chief economic index occupies one fourth of the total index of the province. From 1978 to 1998, the average economic increment speed of the whole city had reached 19.9%. In 1998, the city achieved the gross production of 86.39 billion RMB, the gross value of industry and agriculture reached 139.18 billion RMB with total financial income of 4.27 billion RMB. The per-capita income of the citizens in towns and cities was 7300 yuan while the per-capita income of the peasants was 4000 yuan. All the prefectures have been listed in the "Ten Best Economic Strength of Fujian Province" or the "Ten Best Economic Developing Enterprises". The whole area has attained a comparatively well-off level and is proceeding towards an ample prosperity. Quanzhou has successively been appraised as the trial city for national comprehensive reforms in whole range, the trial city for national technical innovation programs, the national advanced city in science and education, the national model city of civilization, and has been appraised three times as the "National Model City of Mutual Support".

Quanzhou, formerly known as Zaitun, was one of the earliest places in China opened to the outside world and is a historical and cultural city famous. The earliest records of friendly contact between Quanzhou and the countries of Southeast Asia date from the Southern Dynasties in the sixth century. By the Tang dynasty, Quanzhou had already become one of China's four greatest ports. In the Song and Yuan, Quanzhou became as famous a port as Alexandria. With increasing economic and cultural interaction, Quanzhou became a centre of East-West cultural exchange. The remnants of the ancient Minyue culture, the civilization of the Central Plains of China, and foreign cultures all intermingled together, forming a comples and multifaceted culture unique in the Chinese cultural sphere.

The town has an assortment of religious buildings, some quite old. Only one Mosque of the many that used to exist survives, but it is worth seeing. The Qingjing Mosque is on Tumen Jie. There are Taoist, Buddhist, and Confucian temples, as anywhere in China, plus Christian churches. One large and impressive Taoist temple is just east of the mosque. There are also Hindu and Zoroastrian temples, and the world's only surviving Manichean temple.

The "Old Saint", an enormous statue of Lao Tse, the founder of Taoism, on Qingyuanshan just outside town attracts people from all over China.

Quanzhou is famous for puppets. There is an excellent free puppet museum. They sometimes do shows, which are excellent, but not on a regular schedule. You need to be lucky to catch one, or to have a group of 20 or so people and make arrangements.

Other museums include the Fujian-Taiwan Kinship Museum, the Quanzhou Museum, and the Maritime Museum.