Fuzhou

About Fuzhou

Fuzhou is the Banyan City, so named for the great spreading trees that shade its streets, and it sits on the Min River a short way from the Taiwan Strait. The capital of Fujian province has more than eight million people in its wider area, and its history stretches back over two thousand years to the ancient kingdom of Minyue.

After the First Opium War, Fuzhou became one of the treaty ports opened to foreign trade in 1842, and as Foochow it shipped huge quantities of tea to the world. In 1866 the Mawei shipyard downriver became a cradle of China's modern navy. The city produced scholars and reformers too, such as Lin Zexu and the translator Yan Fu, whose homes still stand.

Visitors come for the whitewashed lanes of Three Lanes and Seven Alleys, the classical West Lake, the twin pagodas of the old city and the temples of Gushan mountain. Fuzhou is also a great food city, famous for fish balls and Buddha Jumps Over the Wall, and its cool hills of Kuliang offer an escape in summer.