China Guide
Fujian, Guangdong and Hainan Island
Xiamen
XIAMEN, traditionally known in the West as Amoy, is a surprisingly pretty city, its streets and buildings, attractive shopping arcades and bustling seafront boasting a nineteenth-century European flavour. One of China's most tourist-friendly cities, Xiamen is the cleanest and, perhaps, most tastefully renovated city you'll see anywhere in the country, giving it the feel of a holiday resort. Compounding the resort atmosphere is the little island of Gulangyu, a ten-minute ferry ride to the southwest, the old colonial home of Europeans and Japanese, whose mansions still line the island's traffic-free streets – staying here is highly recommended.
Joined to the mainland by a five-kilometre-long causeway, the island on which Xiamen stands is located inside a large inlet on the southeastern coast of Fujian province. The built-up area occupies the western part of the island, which faces the mainland, while the eastern part faces onto Taiwanese Jinmen Island. The area of most interest is the old town in the far southwest, and GulangyuIslet just offshore. The remainder of the city is the Special Economic Zone.
Xiamen was a thriving port by the seventeenth century, influenced by a steady succession of Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch fortune-hunters; 200 years later, the British arrived, establishing their nerve centre on Gulangyu, and Xiamen became relatively prosperous. The arrival of the Communists in 1949, and the final escape to Taiwan by Chiang Kaishek with the remains of his Nationalist armies, saw total chaos around Xiamen, with thousands of people streaming across the straits in boats to escape the Communist advance. In the following years, the threat of war with Taiwan constant, most immediately on the smaller islands of Jinmen (Quemoy) and Mazu (Matsu), which lie within sight of Xiamen. In the early 1980s, Xiamen was declared one of China's first Special Economic Zones and is still reaping the benefits. Indeed, Xiamen's pleasant climate, healthy economy and relatively sympathetic urban development mean that it is regularly voted the city in China with the best all-round standard of living.
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