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Xiamen 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 ... more »
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Hotels Xiamen 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 E-mn^g (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 Taiwanese 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.
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 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 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 with amazing views of the city. 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.
* Xiamen is served by the Xiamen Gaoqi International Airport, the base of Xiamen Airlines.
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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.
* You can take taxi from the airport to the city. The taxi fee is around 30-40RMB. * A ferry service links Xiamen Island and Gulangyu Island. * There are two major bridges linking Xiamen Island to Mainland China.
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The place was made Tong'an District in 282, a sub-entity of Jin'an Prefecture. 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, 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, then upgraded to a vice-province-class city, 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", "cumshaw", "ketchup", and "Pekoe" 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.
*Xiamen has a subtropical monsoon climate, mild and rainy, neither sweltering in summer nor snowing in winter. The annual average temperature is 21 degrees Celsius; the maximum is 38.4 degrees and minimum is 2 degrees. The average temperature during summer is 26 degrees. The annual rainfall averages 1,100 mm, and strong northeastern winds prevail.Lonely Planet Maps (external source)
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* This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Source wikipedia.
