Places

Tianluokeng (田螺坑土楼群, "Snail Pit") is the photo-iconic Huang-clan cluster in Shangban Village, Shuyang Town, Nanjing County.

Dehua (德化) is Fujian's mountainous porcelain county, 90 minutes northwest of Quanzhou city.

Xunpu Village (蟳埔村) is a 1.5 km² fishing village on Quanzhou's east coast — fewer than 8,000 residents, narrow lanes, and walls built from layered oyster shells (hāohuā) that glow almost golden in the late sun.

Luoyang Bridge (洛阳桥, Luòyáng Qiáo) is the oldest surviving stone sea-crossing bridge in China and one of the most audacious pieces of medieval engineering anywhere.

Qingjing Mosque (清净寺, "Mosque of Purity") on Tumen Street is one of the most significant surviving material witnesses to the Maritime Silk Road.

Qingyuan Mountain (清源山, Qīngyuán Shān) rises directly north of Quanzhou old town, visible from West Street. At 572 m it's a gentle mountain, and the half-day walk through its forested ridge is Quanzhou's quiet counterweight to the old-town heritage density.

Chongwu Ancient Stone City (崇武古城) in Hui'an County, 50 km east of Quanzhou, is the best-preserved Ming-dynasty coastal defense fortress in China.

Kaiyuan Temple (开元寺) is the oldest and largest Buddhist monastery in Fujian — founded in 686 CE during the Tang dynasty, renamed "Kaiyuan" ("Opening Fortune") by Emperor Xuanzong in 738.

Anxi (安溪), a mountainous county 90 minutes west of Quanzhou city, is the birthplace of Tieguanyin (铁观音, "Iron Goddess of Mercy") — one of the most famous oolong teas in the world.

Quanzhou Old Town (泉州古城) is organised around West Street (西街, Xījiē) — a 1.2 km avenue first laid out in 714–741 CE under the Tang dynasty and continuously inhabited since. It runs east from the East Pagoda of Kaiyuan Temple to the old city's Clock Tower.

The Nine-Bend Stream (九曲溪, Jiǔqū Xī) is Wuyishan's defining waterway: 9.5 km of emerald river curling nine times through Danxia peaks, each bend giving a different view.

Tianyou Peak (天游峰, "Roaming the Heavens") is the single most-climbed peak in the Wuyi scenic core, and the shot every Wuyishan brochure leads with: from the summit platform you look straight down onto the Sixth Bend of the Nine-Bend Stream, with rafts drifting past 200 metres below and Danxia pea