From Wikitravel

Fujian (福建) [1] is a province in South East China.

[edit] Cities

The three most important cities (North to South along the coast) are:

• Fuzhou, the provincial capital. Population 1.2 million in the city itself, 6.6 million for the prefecture
• Quanzhou, a historic port, 330,000 / 6.5 million
• Xiamen, port city and special economic zone, 700,000 / 1.3 million

Other cities include:

• Longyan in the West of Fujian, nature reserves and Hakka earth houses, 192,000 / 2.8 million
• Nanping up the Min river from Fuzhou, 236,000 / 3 million
• Ningde on the coast, North of Fuzhou, 125,000 / 3.2 million
• Putian between Fuzhou and Quanzhou, 170,000 / 3.2 million
• Sanming up in the mountains, 207.000 / 2.7 million
• Zhangzhou inland, Southwest of Xiamen, 250,000 / 4.5 million

Prefecture population numbers are from a Fujian government site [2]. Other numbers are from another site [3] and may not be up to date.

[edit] Other destinations

The province's main tourist attractions are:

• Wu Yi Mountain, a very scenic area famous for its tea
• the Hakka earth round houses Longyan, fascinating, centuries-old buildings that are home to a whole clan
• Gulang Yu, an island across a narrow strait from downtown Xiamen, featuring old colonial buildings, lots of tourist shops, and a piano museum.

Quanzhou is off the beaten path but worth visiting. Also its neighboring towns:

• Anxi provided the tea for the Boston Tea Party, and has a beautiful temple at Qingshui rock.
• Dehau makes fine white pottery, famous as 'blanc de chine' in the West.
• Chongwu is a lovely old walled town, with excellent beaches nearby

Putian has a temple to the sea goddess Mazu. Her annual festival, in spring, brings in hundreds of thousands of visitors, mainly fishermen or sailors from Taiwan and Southeast Asia.

[edit] Understand

Historically, Fujian has been one of the more prosperous and outward-looking provinces of China. In the 1900s, two of China's five treaty ports - Xiamen and Fuzhou - were in Fujian. After the Second World war, however, Fujian's traditional trade with Japan was reduced and her other main customer, Taiwan, was the enemy. Recently, however, Fujian is recovering. Like other coastal provinces, it is now one of the more modern and prosperous areas of China.

As everywhere in China, there are many religions and quite a few atheists. Fujian has a higher proportion of Muslims than most areas of Southern China due to the history of trade via the Maritime Silk Road, and quite a few Christians since it was a focus of 19th century missionary activity.

[edit] Talk

Today, all educated people in Fujian speak Mandarin. It has been the language of education throughout China since the 1950s and is now the lingua franca in Fujian as everywhere else.

However, Fujian also has dozens of its own dialects. The terrain is mountainous; at one time nearly every valley had its own language, this is mostly due to the mountainous landscape of the province, where in the past,transportations were difficult which resulted development of numerous dialect, These dialects are usually described with the prefix "Min", where Min is another name for Fujian.

Among the most important is Minnan, (Southern Min), spoken in Xiamen, Quanzhou, Zhangzhou and surrounding areas. Many people in Taiwan speak the same language, though they may call it Taiwanese. In Malaysia and Singapore, the same language is called Hokkien (the Minnan word for Fujian).

Fuzhou dialect (fuzhou hua) also has a large number of speakers.

[edit] Get in

Fujian is well connected via China's domestic airline, bus, highway and train networks. The main airports are at Xiamen and Fuzhou; both have flights to Hong Kong as well as many mainland cities. Xiamen also has cheap international connections to Manila, Singapore and Bangkok; see Discount airlines in Asia for details.

The scenic Wu Yi Mountain area also has an airport with good domestic connections. Often package deals are available - flights and accommodation, and perhaps a guide, for a fixed price.

[edit] Get around

The main mode of intercity travel is by bus. There are trains, but some routes are not convenient because of mountainous terrain. New lines for high speed trains are, as of mid-2007, under construction but nowhere near ready. Flying within the province is relatively expensive.

[edit][add listing] Eat

Fujian has its own cuisine, largely based on seafood. One famous dish is "Buddha jumps over a wall", a complex chowder that supposedly smells good enough to make a vegetarian monk forget his vows and hop a fence.

[edit][add listing] Drink

Fujian is famous for tea (in the 19th century, Fuzhou was China's busiest tea port) and you can get good tea almost anywhere. Try the tea eggs(茶葉蛋 cháyèdàn), hard boiled eggs available on streets everywhere.

Like most of China, Fujian has quite a few locations for several large coffee chains, including UBC Coffee (上岛咖啡 shàngdǎo kāfēi), Ming Tien and SPR. It also has some good smaller chains, Blenz, Dawin and King Buck; these are usually cheaper.

As anywhere in China, beer is widely available. Hui Quan is a Fujian brand, a light palatable lager.

A chain of bars called Scotland (some complete with a statue of a kilted piper outside) have locations in Fuzhou, Xiamen and Quanzhou. They often have Filipino bands and are popular with expats, expensive by Chinese standards (¥30 beer) but perhaps worth it.

[edit] Stay safe

Like other areas on the Southern coastal, Fujian is prone to typhoons, which occur mostly from July to September. The province is also located on several small fault lines, and so is occasionally hit by earthquakes, though these tend to be minor.

[edit] Get out

Neighboring provinces along the coast are Zhejiang to the North and Guangdong to the South. Jiangxi lies inland of Fujian. There are good connections to any of these by road or rail.

This is a usable article. It has information for getting in as well as some complete entries for restaurants and hotels. An adventurous person could use this article, but please plunge forward and help it grow!