Xiamen's History

The Song Dynasty opened Xia Men as a sea port and put it on the map.

During the qing dynasty Xia Men continued tobe the main export port for tea in china, many words used to describe the merchandise where taken from their Hokkien Language.

The Manchurians fought a few wars before the qing dynasty opened Xia Men back up ad a port city. Before opening as a port city the ming loyalist Koxinga renamed Xia Men ,Siming ( meaning "remembering the mings")

During the first Opium War , The British captured Xia Men at the battle of Amoy in 1841. When the treaty of Nanking was made in 1842 Xia Men once again opened as a global port, it was named one of the five global ports as a result of the Chinese losing the battle to the British.

Xia Men was very much influenced by western settler in fact, the western settlers also settled the neighbouring island of Gulangyu and even today it is well known for it's western architecture and way of life.

When XIamen was under British seige many people from the Fujian province fled elsewhere.They spread trough taiwan and mainland china during the 19th Century.

During this period of time the Japanese occupied Xiamen and Taiwan. Their occupation ended when the allies and the china communist party took hold of their country.

When China Began to reform it's economy it made Xiamen a Special Economic Zone, they did this to attract foreign investments especially overseas chinese.

The Biggest Corruption Scandal was uncovered in Xiamen. Implicating more than 200 government officials. One famous politician ran a large smuggling operatin and the money from this operation ran the cities soccer team and studios.