Fujian is a coastal province in southeastern China, facing Taiwan across the Taiwan Strait. It is a mountainous province — most of the interior is steep forested hills — and historically its population has been oriented toward the sea. Fujian was the origin of a large proportion of the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia, and the province has long had stronger economic ties with the outside world than much of inland China.
The provincial capital Fuzhou is over 2,000 years old and worth exploring. Xiamen, on the southern coast, is the most developed destination — a pleasant city with a good international airport and a car-free colonial island, Gulangyu, offshore. Quanzhou, once the busiest port in the medieval world, is a UNESCO World Heritage city with remarkable remains from its days as the eastern terminus of the Maritime Silk Road. The Wuyi Mountains in the northwest are another UNESCO site, known for dramatic bamboo-raft gorges and the finest oolong tea in China. Deep in the western interior, the Fujian Tulou — the great circular earthen fortress-houses of the Hakka people — are unlike anything else you will see.
