Current Time in Quanzhou, China

Quanzhou is a prefecture-level city in Fujian Province on the southeastern coast of China, located on the Taiwan Strait. With a population of approximately 8.8 million people, it is one of the most economically significant cities in southern China and holds an extraordinarily rich cultural and historical heritage as one of the greatest maritime trading ports in world history.

During the Song and Yuan dynasties, from roughly the 10th to the 14th centuries, Quanzhou was the largest and most important international seaport in the world, known to Arab and Persian traders as Zayton. At its peak, the city hosted merchants, scholars, and religious communities from the Arab world, Persia, India, Southeast Asia, and beyond. Marco Polo described the port with awe, noting the staggering volume of goods and the diversity of peoples it attracted. This heritage earned Quanzhou the designation as the starting point of the Maritime Silk Road, and in 2021 the city was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its extraordinary evidence of this cosmopolitan trading civilization.

The city's historical legacy is visible in a remarkable collection of religious monuments reflecting the diverse communities that once thrived here. The Quanzhou Maritime Museum, Kaiyuan Temple, Qingjing Mosque (one of the oldest mosques in China), the Cao'an Manichean Temple (the only surviving Manichean temple in the world), and numerous Hindu stone carvings scattered throughout the city all testify to the astonishing religious and cultural pluralism of medieval Quanzhou.

Quanzhou is also considered the ancestral homeland of a large proportion of the overseas Chinese diaspora, particularly in Southeast Asia. Many Chinese communities in Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and other countries trace their family roots to the Quanzhou region, and the cultural and linguistic influences of the Hokkien Quanzhou dialect are felt widely across the Chinese diaspora world.

The modern economy of Quanzhou is highly industrialized, particularly in the textile, footwear, stone carving, and equipment manufacturing industries. The city is known as China's shoe manufacturing capital, producing a significant share of the world's footwear. Jinjiang, a county-level city under Quanzhou, is home to many of China's major athletic shoe brands.

Quanzhou is connected to the national high-speed rail network and served by Quanzhou Jinjiang International Airport, with expressways linking it to Xiamen, Fuzhou, and other regional centers.

Quanzhou's unparalleled heritage as a center of world trade, religious pluralism, and maritime civilization, combined with its dynamic modern manufacturing economy, makes it one of the most historically significant and fascinating cities in China.