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Xiamen

Encyclopedia : X : XI : XIA : Xiamen

厦门市
Xiàmén Shì
Xiamen is highlighted on this map
Administration Type Sub-provincial city
Area 1,565 km²
(300 km² water)
Population 1.37 million (2002)
GDP ¥38,567 (ca. US,660) per capita (2003), ranked 9th in China
Major Nationalities Han
County-level divisions 6
Township-level divisions Unknown
Area Code 592

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Xiamen (Simplified Chinese: }}}; Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Hsiamen) is a coastal sub-provincial city in southeastern Fujian province, People's Republic of China. It looks out to the Taiwan Strait and borders the cities of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou to the north and south respectively.

Xiamen is also known as Amoy internationally, especially in older records. In the Amoy vernacular, the city name is Ē-mn̂g (using the POJ romanization). The toponym literally means "The Gate of the Grand Mansion". Xiamen is famous for being the ancestral home to overseas Chinese and Taiwan compatriots as well as one of the earliest special economic zones in China. It covers an area of 1,565 km² with a local population of 2.01 million.

Contents

Administration

The subprovincial city of Xiamen administers 6 districts. The districts of Siming and Huli form the Special Economic Zone.

In May 2003, Gulangyu Island and Kaiyuan District were merged into Siming District, Xinglin District (杏林区) were merged into Jimei District, and Xiang'an District was created out of a section of Tong'an District.

History

The place was made Tong'an District (同安縣) in 282, a sub-entity of Jin'an Prefecture (晉安郡). In 1387, the Ming Dynasty used it as base against pirates, and was part of Quanzhou. Koxinga stationed here in 1650, naming it Siming Island (思明洲), or "Remembering the Ming", but the city was renamed by the Manchus in 1680 to Xiamen Subprefecture. The name "Siming" was reverted after the 1912 Xinhai Revolution and made a county. The following it was reverted to Xiamen City. In 1949, Xiamen became a provincial city (省轄市), then upgraded to a vice-province-class city (副省級市), or a municipality. It was made a Special Economic Zone in 1980.

Xiamen was the port of trade first used by Europeans in 1541. It was China's main port in the 19th century for exporting tea. As a result, the Amoy dialect had a major influence on how Chinese terminology was translated into English and other European languages. For example, the words "Amoy", "tea" (茶; tê), "cumshaw" (感謝; kám-siā), "ketchup" (茄汁; kiô-chiap), and "Pekoe" (白毫; pe̍h-hô) originated from the Amoy dialect.

Xiamen was one of the five Chinese treaty ports opened by the Treaty of Nanjing (signed in 1842) at the end of the First Opium War between Britain and China.

In 2000, the largest corruption scandal in China's history was uncovered, implicating up to 200 government officials.

Economy

Since Xiamen Special Economic Zone was established, it has opened up to foreign direct investment and created many jobs, factories, export opportunities for local companies and multi-national corporations. Xiamen benefits particularly from investment capital from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. Xiamen's primary economic activities include fishing, shipbuilding, food processing, tanning, textiles, machine tools manufacturing, chemical industries, financial and telecommunication services.

Xiamen is one of the favourite destination for foreign investors. By the end of 2000, a total of 4,991 projects with foreign direct investment were approved in the city, with a contractual foreign investment amount of USD17.527 billion and an actual foreign investment amount of USD11.452 billion [link]..

In 1992, Xiamen was ranked among the top 10 Chinese cities in relation to comprehensive strengths with its GDP increasing by an average of over 20% annually. In 2000, Xiamen's GDP amounted to 50.115 billion Yuan, an increase of 15.1% over the previous year, 1.1 percentage points over the expected increase target; and the per-capita GDP was about 4,650 US dollars. Further economic retorms was further introduced and this brought about the total volume of imports and exports in 2000 reached USD10.049 billion, while that of exports totalled to USD5.880 billion [link].

Financial services

By Chinese standards, Xiamen has highly developed banking services. The biggest bank is the state-owned commercial bank, Sino-foreign joint venture "Xiamen International Bank", and solely foreign-funded "Xiamen City Commercial Bank".

Foreign banks that have established representative offices in Xiamen includes

Hong Kong

Singapore US Banks European Banks Filipino Banks Thai Banks Japanese Banks There are more than 600 financial institutions in operation in Xiamen. Retail and corporte customers in Xiamen have access to a wide variety of financial services and various financial services firm.

Geography and climate

Geography

Xiamen comprises Xiamen Island (situated longitude 118° 04'04"E, by latitude 24° 26'46" N.), Gulangyu Island, and a larger region along the mouth of Jiulong River on the continent. Huli District and most of Siming District (except Gulangyu) are on Xiamen Island, while the other four districts lie on the mainland. The Gaoji (Gaoqi-Jimei) Causeway buuilt in 1955 has transformed Xiamen Island into a peninsula by linking it with the mainland.

Xiamen Island is located very close to the island of Quemoy (Kinmen), which is governed by the Republic of China (based on Taiwan).

Climate

Xiamen has a subtropical monsoon climate, mild and rainy, neither sweltering in summer nor snowing in winter with an annual average temperature of 21 degrees Celsius with the max highest temperature of 38.4 degrees Celsius and the lowest of 2 degrees Celsius , an average rainfall of 1,100 mm, and strong northeastern winds prevailing. The average temperature during summer is 26 degrees Celsius.

Culture

The local vernacular is Amoy, a dialect of Southern Min, also called Hokkien. Amoy is widely used and understood in the southern region of Fujian province. The official language of the People's Republic of China is Mandarin (putonghua), is also used in the media, business, communications, education and the arts.

Transportation

Currently, there are seven Asian cities that have direct flights to Xiamen. They are Penang, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Jakarta, Osaka, Nagoya, Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore and Bangkok. Cities outside China's mainland that have direct flights to Xiamen are Hong Kong and Macau which are situated on Guangdong province's southern border.

Infrastructure

Xiamen Port

Xiamen Port is one of the top ten ports in China. It is a huge, deepwater, ice-free port that never silts up. Xiamen port is located on Xiamen Island which is at the mouth of the Jiulong River. It has an excellent natural harbour and is well connected to the mainland. The natural coastline in the port area is 64.5 km while the water is over 12 m indepth. There are 81 berths of big, medium or small tonnage, including 16 deep-water berths, of which 6 operate containers of over 10,000 tonnages. 100,000t ships can berth straight at the inner port, while 50,000t ships can pull in for loading and unloading. Currently, Xiamen port has navigation routes to Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Kaohsiung and Singapore. But Xiamen has recently opened ocean routes to the Mediterranean Sea, Europe and America. In 2000, the cargo throughput at the port was 19.65 million tons, an increase of 10.82% over the previous year; the container throughput reached 108.46 million TEUs, up by 27.83% from the previous year.

Tourism

Xiamen was recently voted China's cleanest city, and has many attractions for the tourist. Xiamen and its surrounding countryside provides spectacular scenery and pleasant tree-lined beaches. Gulangyu, also known as Piano Island, is a popular, peaceful weekend getaway. Xiamen's Botanical Garden is a nature lover's paradise. And the Buddhist Nanputao Temple, dating back to the Tang Dynasty, is a national treasure.

Shopping

Xiamen has a wide variety of department stores. There are also supermarkets run by Metro and Wal-Mart and the SM Shopping Mall, where you can buy almost everything you need at reasonable prices. There are also supermarkets on university campuses and they have delivery service for many goods to save your time and trip. In the university campus, there are many bookstores where you can either read or pick up the recently published bestsellers or textbooks you need in your studies. Both the supermarkets and bookstores open seven days a week from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. In Xiamen, night markets are really vibrant. The city’s booming economy provide excellent opportunities for overseas students to improve their oral Chinese, have internship and even work as casuals.

Colleges and universities

National

Public

Private

Sister cities

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
[Special]

Prefecture-level divisions of Fujian
'''Sub-provincial cities: Xiamen
'''Prefecture-level cities: Fuzhou | Longyan | Nanping | Ningde
Putian | Quanzhou | Sanming | Zhangzhou
List of Fujian County-level divisions

 

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