Fuzhou

Information about Fuzhou

This article is about the city in Fujian province. For the city in Jiangxi province, see Fuzhou, Jiangxi.


福州市
Fúzhōu Shì
Also known as: Foochow or Fuchow
Enlarge picture
Fuzhou is highlighted on this map

The seal of Fuzhou: 3 hills and a river.

Administration TypePrefecture-level city
Area12,000 km²
Population6.6 million
Native LanguageFuzhou dialect (Eastern Min language)
GDP¥31582 (ca. US$3800) per capita (2003)
Major NationalitiesHan, Manchurian, Miao, Hui
County-level divisions13
Township-level divisionsUnknown
Area Code591


Fuzhou (helpinfo) (Chinese: 福州; Pinyin: Fúzhōu; Wade-Giles: Fu-chou; Foochow Romanized: Hók-ciŭ; EFEO: Fou-Tcheou; also seen as Foochow or Fuchow) is the capital and the largest prefecture-level city of Fujian (福建) province, People's Republic of China. It is also referred to as Rongcheng (榕城) which means "city of banyan trees."

Its GDP was ¥31582 (ca. US$3800) per capita in 2003, ranked no. 21 among 659 Chinese cities.

History

The exact foundation date of this city is not known. When Yue to the north of Fujian was annexed by Chu in 306 BC, a branch of the royal family of the defeated Yue fled Fujian and became the Minyue (闽越) tribe.

The first city wall of Fuzhou was built in 202 BC when Liu Bang, the founding emperor of the Han Dynasty, gave permission to Wuzhu (无诸), the king of Minyue, to set up his capital in Fuzhou. The city was named Ye (冶), meaning "The Beautiful". The name has changed many times, but the city has been continuously occupied since 202 BC and has never suffered major destruction by wars or natural disasters.

The Minyue was annexed by Han in 110 BC and became a part of China, and Fuzhou became Ye County. During the Jin Dynasty, West Lake, East Lake (now silted up) and numerous canals in the city were constructed (282 AD).

When the Jin Dynasty collapsed, the first wave of immigrants of the gentile class arrived in Fujian (308 AD). During the Tang Dynasty (725 AD), it started to be called Fuzhou.

More immigrants arrived from the north starting from 892 as the Tang Dynasty was collapsing. After the Tang Dynasty fell in 907, the Wang family managed to establish a kingdom called Min (909 – 945) with its capital in Fuzhou, then known as Changle. Min is still used as another name for the province of Fujian, in names of region such as minnan, and the river that runs through Fuzhou is called Min Jiang.

New city walls were built in 282 AD, 901 AD, 905 AD, and 974 AD, so the city had many layers of walls — more than the Chinese capital.

Emperor Taizong of the Song Dynasty (宋) ordered destruction of all the walls in Fuzhou in 978 AD but new walls were rebuilt later. The latest was built in 1371 AD.

During the Southern Song Dynasty, Fuzhou became more prosperous; many scholars came here to live and work. Among them were Zhu Xi (朱熹), the most celebrated Chinese philosopher after Confucius, and Xin Qiji (辛弃疾), the greatest composer of ci (a specialized form of poem). After them came Marco Polo, who transcribed the placename in Italian as Fugiu according to Mandarin Chinese.

Hualin Temple in the original Ye city, which has been declared a national heritage site, was built in 964 AD according to documentation, but was carbon-dated to the 4th or 5th century AD. It is probably the oldest existing wooden structure in China.

Between 1405 and 1433 AD, the Chinese (Ming) navy fleet, led by Zheng He, sailed from Fuzhou to the Indian Ocean seven times; on three occasions the fleet landed on the east coast of Africa. Before the last sailing, Zheng erected a stele dedicated to the goddess Tian-Fei (Matsu) near the seaport.

In the 19th century, Lin Zexu, a native of Fuzhou, led an unsuccessful attempt to resist the British fleet at Canton Bay, and Lin was exiled to the Russian border. At the end of the First Opium War, Fuzhou became one of the five Chinese treaty ports opened by the Treaty of Nanjing (signed in 1842). Lin Zexu died on November 22, 1850 at age of 66.

On November 8, 1911, revolutionaries staged an uprising in Fuzhou. After an overnight street battle, the Qing (Manchu) army surrendered. On November 22, 1933, the leaders of the 19th Army set up a short-lived Republic of China (中華共和國) in Fuzhou (compare the name to Chiang’s “Republic of China” (中華民國), which literally means “People’s State of China”); it collapsed in two months.

Aroung 1940, the Japanese army decided to invade Fuzhou. Surrounded by hills on 3 sides, the Japanese army quickly bombed and invaded the city. Japanese planes quickly bombed the only escape route for Chinese civilians- the bridges across the neighbouring river, leaving many civilians dangerously crossing the river on foot. The Japanese soon took the city and held it until Japan's surrender in 1945.

See also: Battle of Foochow

Districts and counties

The administrative divisions of Fuzhou have changed frequently in history. In 1983, Fuzhou administered 5 districts and 8 counties, whose territory has not changed since then. In 1990 and 1994, Fuqing (Hók-chiăng) and Changle (Diòng-lŏ̤h) counties were promoted to county-level cities. Despite this change, the old statement of "5 districts and 8 counties" is still popular among the local people.
  • Districts: Gulou (鼓楼，Gū-làu), Taijiang (台江，Dài-gĕ̤ng), Cangshan (仓山，Chŏng-săng), Mawei(马尾，Mā-muōi), Jin'an(晋安，Céng-ăng).
  • County-level cities: Fuqing (福清，Hók-chiăng), Changle (长乐，Diòng-lŏ̤h).
  • Counties: Minhou (闽侯，Mìng-âu), Minqing (闽清，Mìng-chiăng), Yongtai (永泰，Īng-tái), Lianjiang (连江，Lièng-gŏng), Luoyuan (罗源，Lò̤-nguòng), Pingtan (平潭，Bìng-tàng).

Transportation

Fuzhou Changle International Airport

Tourism

Fuzhou, also known as the City of Banyan after the many Banyan trees that dot the city landscape, may not be as rich in history as some other ancient Chinese cities but still boasts a fair number of historical sights.
  • Sanfang Qixiang (三坊七巷) (a cluster of ancient resident buildings dated from late Jin Dynasty)
  • West Lake (福州西湖)(an artificial lake built in 282 AD)
  • Hualin Temple (华林寺)(founding date uncertain)
  • Dizang Temple (founded in 527 AD)
  • Xichan Temple (西禅寺)(founded in 867 AD)
  • Wu Ta (乌塔)(Black Pagoda) (originally built in 799 AD, rebuilt in 936 AD)
  • Bai Ta (白塔)(White Pagoda) (originally built in 905 AD, 67 m in height, collapsed in 1534 AD, rebuilt in 1548 AD, 41 m in height)
  • Yongquan Temple (涌泉寺)(founded in 915 AD)
  • Gu Shan (鼓山)(Drum Mountain)
  • Fuzhou National Forest Park (福州国家森林公园)

Sister cities

Colleges and universities

Note: Institutions without full-time bachelor programs are not listed.

See also

External links


Prefecture-level divisions of Fujian
'''Sub-provincial cities:Xiamen
'''Prefecture-level cities:Fuzhou | Longyan | Nanping | Ningde
Putian | Quanzhou | Sanming | Zhangzhou
List of Fujian County-level divisions


 •  • [ e]
Major cities of Greater China


Coordinates:
Not to be confused with Fuzhou (Fujian province)


Fuzhou (Chinese: 抚州; Pinyin: Fǔzhōu
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A prefecture-level city (Chinese: 地级市; Pinyin: dìjí shì; literally "region-level city") or prefecture-level municipality
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Area is a physical quantity expressing the size of a part of a surface. The term Surface area is the summation of the areas of the exposed sides of an object.

Units

Units for measuring surface area include:
square metre = SI derived unit

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Square kilometre (U.S. spelling: square kilometer), symbol km², is a decimal multiple of the SI unit of surface area, the square metre, one of the SI derived units. 1 km² is equal to:
  • 1,000,000 m²
  • 100 ha (hectare)
Conversely:
  • 1 m² = 0.

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population is the collection of people or organisms of a particular species living in a given geographic area or mortality, and migration, though the field encompasses many dimensions of population change including the family (marriage and divorce), public health, work and the
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first language a human being learns to speak is his/her native language. He/She is a native speaker of this language according to Leonard Bloomfield [1]

A first language or native language is a basis for sociolinguistic identity.
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Fuzhou dialect (福州話), also known as Foochow, Foochow dialect, Fuzhouhua or Foochowese, is considered the standard dialect of Min Dong, which is a branch of Chinese mainly spoken in the eastern part of Fujian Province.
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gross domestic product, or GDP, is one of the ways for measuring the size of its economy. The GDP of a country is defined as the total market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period of time (usually a calendar year).
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The following is a list of ethnic groups in China.

The Han Chinese are the largest ethnic group based on the 2000 census, where some 91.5% of the population was classified as Han Chinese (~1.2 billion).
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Majority populations
 People's Republic of China [https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ch.html#People]
-  Hong Kong [https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/hk.html#People]
-  Macau [https://www.cia.
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Manchuria ( Romanized Manchu: Manju, Simplified Chinese: 满洲; Traditional Chinese: 滿洲; Pinyin: Mǎnzhōu
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Hmong (IPA:[m̥ɔ̃ŋ]) and Mong ([mɔ̃ŋ]) both refer to an Asian ethnic group in the mountainous regions of southern China.
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Hui people (Chinese: ; Pinyin: Huízú, Xiaoerjing: حُوِ ذَو ) are a Chinese ethnic group, typically distinguished by their practice of Islam.
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The Chinese Telephone Code Plan is the way to group telephone numbers in mainland China. Land lines and mobile phones follow different systems: land lines use area codes, while mobile phones do not.
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Chinese or the Sinitic language(s) (汉语/漢語, Pinyin: Hànyǔ; 华语/華語, Huáyǔ; or 中文, Zhōngwén) can be considered a language or language family.
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Pinyin, more formally called Hanyu Pinyin (Simplified Chinese: 汉语拼音; Traditional Chinese: 漢語拼音
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Wade-Giles /ˌweɪdˈʤaɪlz/ (Simplified Chinese: 威妥玛拼音 or 韦氏拼音
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Bàng-uâ-cê (BUC) (Chinese characters: 平話字), also known as Foochow Romanized, is a romanized orthography for the Fuzhou dialect adopted in the middle of 19th century by Western missionaries.
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A prefecture-level city (Chinese: 地级市; Pinyin: dìjí shì; literally "region-level city") or prefecture-level municipality
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福建省
Fújiàn Shěng
This infobox describes only the PRC-administered Fujian province
Abbreviations: ?  (Pinyin: Mǐn)

Origin of name
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A province, in the context of China, is a translation of sheng (Chinese: 省; Pinyin: shěng), which is an administrative division.
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Anthem
March of the Volunteers (义勇军进行曲)
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banyan is a fig that starts its life as an epiphyte when its seeds germinate in the cracks and crevices on a host tree (or on structures like buildings and bridges). "Banyan" often refers specifically to the species Ficus benghalensis
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Yue (Chinese: 越國; Pinyin: yuègúo) (also known as Zhao in other sources) was a state in China which existed during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, in modern Zhejiang.
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Chu () was a kingdom in what is now central and southern China during the Spring and Autumn period (722-481 BCE) and Warring States Period (481-221 BCE).

It was originally known as Jing () and then as Jingchu ().
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4th century BC - 3rd century BC
330s BC  320s BC  310s BC - 300s BC - 290s BC  280s BC  270s BC 
309 BC 308 BC 307 BC - 306 BC - 305 BC 304 BC 303 BC

Politics
State leaders - Sovereign states

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Minyue (Traditional Chinese: 閩越) was an ancient kingdom located in today Fujian, Southern China, during Han Dynasty. There lived a mix of multi tribes, namely Baiyue. The state survived roughly from 334 BC to 110 BC.
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3rd century BC - 2nd century BC
230s BC  220s BC  210s BC - 200s BC - 190s BC  180s BC  170s BC 
205 BC 204 BC 203 BC - 202 BC - 201 BC 200 BC 199 BC

Politics
State leaders - Sovereign states

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Emperor Gao (256 BC or 247 BC–June 1, 195 BC), commonly known inside China as Gaozu (Chinese: 高祖; Pinyin: Gāozǔ, Wade-Giles: Kao Tsu), personal name
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Han Dynasty (Traditional Chinese: 漢朝; Simplified Chinese: 汉朝
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