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Fuzhou
is the capital city of Fujian Province, located on China’s southeastern
coast. With a long tradition as a coastal port and shipbuilding center,
Fuzhou is the major coastal city between Hong Kong and Shanghai. It is
known as “Banyan Town” after the subtropical banyan trees planted there
since the Song dynasty. As the central city of a province with many
ethnic and linguistic links to Taiwan, Fuzhou has benefited from
cross-strait investment and is today a major commercial and
manufacturing center.
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Fuzhou, Fujian
Province |
Fuzhou lies on the Min
River, in the east of Fujian Province, some 50 km (30 miles)
from the sea. The city is on a subtropical plain close to the Fu
Mountains. It
is 700 km (435 miles)
northeast of Hong Kong, and 1,500 km (930 miles)
southeast of Beijing.
Fuzhou’s history
dates back to the 3rd century AD, when it became a center of ore
smelting. Thereafter it was capital, known as Minzhou, of the coastal
kingdom of Minyue. When it was absorbed into the Tang dynasty, Fuzhou
acquired its present name, which mean “prosperous city” or
“fortunate city.” It grew wealthy as a coastal port for the export
of tea.
Marco Polo is supposed
to have passed through Fuzhou at the end of the 13th century.
He described it as a great center of international commerce with special
links to the Indian trade, prosperous, with great gardens and an
abundance of fruit. He
also noted the presence of a large Christian community there, with roots
going back several hundred years. These were possibly descendants of
Nestorian Christians, a Syrian sect that had come to China via the Silk
Road.
Fuzhou’s
international links continued in the Ming dynasty, when it was the
homeport for the international voyages of the eunuch-admiral Zheng He in
the early 15th century. In 1842, following the Opium Wars, Fuzhou became
one of the five ports declared open to foreign trade. It also became a
center of both Catholic and Protestant missionary activity after that
time.
Because of Fuzhou’s
proximity to Taiwan, and the ethnic and linguistic closeness of the two
regions, cross-strait investment has made Fuzhou one of China’s most
prosperous cities.
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