Xiamen

As a beautiful seaside city located on the southeastern coast of China, Xiamen faces the Kinmen Island and is situated across from Taiwan and the Penghu Islands across the Taiwan Straits. Legend has it that white egrets inhabited this area in ancient times, hence Xiamen is also renowned as being the "Egret Island". Its annual average temperature is around 20.9 C, without extreme hot or cold temperatures.

With a land area of 1,700.61 square kilometers and a sea area of 390 sq km, Xiamen administers six districts, namely Siming, Huli, Jimei, Haicang, Tong'an and Xiang'an. South Fujian Dialect is the city's pervasive local dialect among its 5.16 million permanent residents.

Xiamen has been a trading port since ancient times as well as a gateway for China's opening-up and external cooperation. Embracing the vast ocean, the city has hosted visitors from around the world. Being one of the earliest special economic zones in China, the city remains at the forefront of China's reform and opening-up endeavor.

After decades of development, Xiamen has become well known for its innovation and entrepreneurship, with burgeoning new economic forms and new industries, robust trade and investment and easy access around the world by air, land and sea links. Today, it is a beautiful garden city that projects harmony between man and nature.

In 2022, Xiamen's GDP reached 780.27 billion yuan ($114.52 billion), up 4.4 percent year-on-year. Its foreign trade volume in 2022 hit 922.56 billion yuan, up 4 percent year-on-year. The city's trade with BRICS countries and countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative increased 29.9 percent and 12 percent, respectively. The city's urban per capita disposable income and rural per capita disposable income reached 70,467 yuan and 32,323 billion yuan, respectively, a year-on-year increase of 4.9 percent and 8.1 percent.