Fuzhou

Fuzhou
福州
Hók-ciŭ
—  Prefecture-level city  —
福州市
from top, left to right: Black Pagoda of Fuzhou, White Pagoda of Fuzhou; the traditional Foochow-style gate of a mansion, fireproof wall and facade decoration in the Three Lanes and Seven Alleys in Fuzhou; City skyline of Fuzhou
Nickname(s): 榕城 (Banyan City), 三山 (Three Hills)
Location of Fuzhou Prefecture within Fujian

Fuzhou

Location of Fuzhou Prefecture within Fujian
Coordinates: 26°04′34″N 119°18′23″E / 26.07611°N 119.30639°E / 26.07611; 119.30639
Country China
Province Fujian
County-level divisions 13
Government
 - CPC Secretary Yuan Rongxiang
Area
 - Prefecture-level city 12,000 km² (4,633.2 sq mi)
Population (2009)
 - Prefecture-level city 6,870,000
 - Density 572.5/km² (1,482.8/sq mi)
 - Urban 2,710,000
 - Metro density 775.7/km² (2,009/sq mi)
Time zone China Standard Time (UTC+8)
Postal code 350000
Area code(s) 591
GDP 2009
 - Total CNY 252.428 billion (USD 36.98 billion)
 - Per capita CNY 36,851 (USD 5,398)
 - Growth ▲ 12.8%
License plate prefixes 闽A
Local dialect Fuzhou dialect of the Eastern Min Language
Website www.fuzhou.gov.cn

Fuzhou
Chinese 福州
Literal meaning blessing state or Capital of Fu
Transliterations
Mandarin
- Hanyu Pinyin Fúzhōu
- Wade–Giles Fu-chou
Min
- Hokkien POJ Hók-ciŭ
Cantonese
- Jyutping fuk¹zau¹

Fuzhou ( Hokchew (help·info) in the native Foochow language and Fuzhou (help·info) in Mandarin Chinese), Chinese: 福州; pinyin: Fúzhōu; Wade–Giles: Fu-chou; Foochow Romanized: Hók-ciŭ; EFEO: Fou-Tcheou; also seen as Foochow, Fuchow, Fuh-chau, Fuh-Chow, Hock Chew or Hokchew in earlier Western documents, is the capital and the largest municipality of Fujian (福建) province, People's Republic of China.

The city is also referred to as Rongcheng (榕城; Foochow Romanized: Ṳ̀ng-siàng) which means "city of banyan trees".

Along with the many counties of Ningde, those of Fuzhou are considered to constitute the Mindong (闽东, lit. East of Fujian) linguistic and cultural area.

Fuzhou's core counties lie on the north (or left) bank of the estuary of Fujian's largest river, the Min River. All along its northern border lies Ningde, and Ningde's Gutian County lies upriver. Fuzhou's counties south of the Min border on Putian, Quanzhou, Sanming and Nanping municipalities.

History

The exact foundation date of the city is not known. The province's pre-Han history is sketchy: it is known that the Yue Kingdom (in present-day Zhejiang, to the north) fell to that of the Chu in 306 BC; the legend is that a branch of the Yue royal family fled south to found upon the natives the reign of the Minyue (闽越). During the ensuing century of independence from central China, their major centre was not here but far up the Min watershed in Wuyishan City.

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 city name has changed many times, but the city itself 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.

Han Dynasty to Song Dynasty

Under the Han, 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).

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 likely the oldest existing wooden structure in China.

During the Tang Dynasty (725 AD), the city 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 so than the Chinese capital.

Emperor Taizong of the Song Dynasty (宋) ordered the 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 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 the ci form of poetry.

Mongolian Yuan Dynasty

Marco Polo, an Italian guest of the Emperor Kubilai, transcribed, after the conventions of Italian orthography, the place name as Fugiu. This was not the local Min pronunciation but that of the Mandarin administrative class.

Ming Dynasty

Between 1405 and 1433 AD, a fleet of the Ming Imperial navy under Admiral 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.

Galeote Pereira, a Portuguese soldier and trader, was taken prisoner during the pirate extermination campaign of 1549 and imprisoned in Fuzhou. Later transferred to a form of internal exile elsewhere in the province, Pereira escaped to Macau in 1553. The record of his experiences in the Ming Empire, logged by the Jesuits at Goa in 1561, was the first non-clerical account of China to reach the West since Polo's.

Qing Dynasty

In the 19th century, Lin Zexu, born in Fuzhou, a high-ranking official of Qing Dynasty, led an attempt to resist British colonialism at Guangzhou. Unsuccessful and reviled by the East India Company, he was internally exiled to Xinjiang near the Russian border. By the 1842 peace treaty which concluded the Opium War I, Fuzhou became one of the five Chinese treaty ports, and it became completely open to Western merchants and missionaries.

Fuzhou was one of the most important Protestant mission fields in China. On January 2, 1846, the first Protestant missionary, Rev. Stephen Johnson from ABCFM, entered the city and soon set up the first missionary station there. ABCFM was followed by the Methodist Episcopal Missionary Society that was led by Revs. M. C. White and J. D. Collins, who reached Fuzhou in early September 1847. The Church Missionary Society also arrived in the city in May 1850. These three Protestant agencies remained in Fuzhou until the communists' takeover of mainland China in the 1950s, leaving a rich heritage in Fuzhou's Protestant culture.

On August 23, 1884, the Battle of Fuzhou broke out between the French Far East Fleet and the Fujian Fleet of the Qing Dynasty. As the result, the Fujian Fleet, one of the four Chinese regional fleets, was destroyed completely in Mawei Harbor.

Engravings and photos