Fengze Street of Quanzhou

Quanzhou City is located on the southeast of Fujian Province, which is to the west coast of Taiwan Straits. The city covers 11,244 square kilometers, with the population of 6.73 million till the end of 2008.

Quanzhou is the origin of the ancient "Marine Silk Road", the famous hometown of overseas Chinese and compatriots in Taiwan, and one of the three major cities in the province. Quanzhou has jurisdiction over 5 counties, 4 districts, 3 cities and 1 Quanzhou Economic and Technological Development Zone.

History

Being built in 718 A.D., Quanzhou has a long history of around a thousand years. In 1985, the State Department upgraded

Quanzhou is the starting point of the “Silk Route on the Sea”; it had once been very prosperous both in overseas communications and foreign trades. In Song and Yuan Dynasties, Quanzhou Harbor had once been one of the largest harbors in the world, and was equally matched to the Alexandria Harbor in Egypt.

Tourism

With its mountain slopes and magnificent bay, Quanzhou has long been regarded as the most attractive town on China's southeast coast. During the Five Dynasties (907-960), the city was surrounded by Indian coral trees, from which it got the name "city of coral trees."

Quanzhou City Sculpture-Feitian Yingbin

Quanzhou is one of the twenty-four famous historic cultural cities firstly approved by the State Council. From Tang Dynasty to Yuan Dynasty, “Citong Port” in Quanzhou was one of the major ports for foreign trade. It was the departure point of “marine silk route” and enjoyed the grand reputation of “largest oriental port”. This city has long coastline, more bays and deep water, wide coast and small waves, with a length of coastline for harbor construction for 45 kilometers. They mainly distributed among Meizhou Bay (south shore), Quanzhou Bay, Shenzhen Bay and Weitou Bay.

The assembled literature, the long-term mixture of Sino-Western civilizations, all these have brought up numerous brilliant scholars and writers, and have left over a large sum of cultural relics and precious Sino-foreign historic treasure. With a great job done in preserving the culture and tradition, Quanzhou still keeps the cultural heritage, such as South Drama, South Music, South Shaolin and South Architecture; Quanzhou also is famous for the national unique operas, such like Liyuan Drama, Gaojia Drama, Dacheng Drama, Puppetry and so on.  There are 686 key cultural preservation centers and especially 20 with national-level; and the major  cultural preservation includes: Kaiyuan Temple, East-west Twin Tower, Qingyuan Shan, Laojun Rock, Islamic Qingjing Mosque, Cao An Manichaeism Buddha, Anping Bridge, ancient city of Chongwu, etc. Twelve scenic spots in the city are of the national protective cultural relics, thirty-seven of the provincial relics, and more than two hundred of the local ones.

Quanzhou's unique traditional festival is called the Zhongyuan Festival, also known as the Pudu Ri in Pinyin, which usually lasts for o ne month starting from July 10th in the Chinese lunar calendar. During this month, people carry out sacrificial rites to their ancestors, entertain guests and perform local operas.

Quanzhou also holds a tourism festival every year in different locations around the city. Tourists and businessmen come from all over the world to gather, enjoy various folk performances and tourism product exhibitions.

Climate

Cai Clan Antient Living Quarters

Quanzhou is in the southern subtropical zone and has a maritime monsoon climate. As a result, the climate is warm and wet almost all year round with annual average temperatures of about 18 C-20 C (64 F-68 F). Therefore a visit can be made to Quanzhou any time of the year, although between April and November is probably the best period.

Table of statistics for Quanzhou climate for each month of the year