Attractions · Xiamen

Gulangyu lies only a few hundred metres across the Lujiang channel from Xiamen Island and covers under two square kilometres, yet at the 41st session of the World Heritage Committee in 2017 it was inscribed on the World Heritage List as 'Gulangyu: a Historic International Community'. After the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842 Xiamen was opened as a treaty port, and Western consulates, churches, hospitals and trading houses followed onto the island; in 1902 the whole island was declared a common ground, producing an international community where overseas residents and locals lived side by side. Nearly a thousand historic buildings survive, southern Fujian red-brick mansions, colonnaded veranda houses and Western-style villas standing shoulder to shoulder. Sunlight Rock, known locally as Huangyan, is the island's high point at 92.7 metres, from which the whole island and Xiamen Bay can be taken in at once. Shuzhuang Garden was laid out in 1913 by Lin Erjia of the Banqiao Lin family of Taiwan, its name a homophone of Lin's courtesy name Shuzang, with its Forty-Four Bridge thrown over the water; the garden now houses the Piano Museum and its close on a hundred antique pianos, while the Eight Trigrams (Bagua) Building, erected in 1907 beneath its red octagonal dome, holds the Organ Museum. This small island produced generations of pianists and musicians, and its piano ownership per capita has long ranked first in China — hence its name, 'Piano Island'.

Tip: Book ferry tickets online in advance and avoid holiday crowds.

• Address: Gulangyu, Siming District, Xiamen, Fujian
• Ticket: Island access is free (ferry ticket sold separately, standard route ¥35); a combo ticket for the island's core sights costs about ¥90, covering Sunlight Rock, Shuzhuang Garden and Haoyue Garden — check official prices.
• Opening: Open all day

Xiamen University was prepared by the overseas Chinese leader Tan Kah Kee (Chen Jiageng) in 1919 and opened on 6 April 1921 — the first modern Chinese university founded by overseas Chinese — before being nationalised in 1937; Tan is still revered by generations of staff and students as the school's proprietor. The campus leans on Wulao Peak to the north and faces the sea at Baicheng to the south: it shares a wall with Nanputuo Temple and looks across the water to Kinmen. Its buildings show the Jiageng style summarised as 'a Western suit with a Chinese hat' — Western storeys in red brick and white stone capped by sweeping Chinese roofs: the Qunxian group of the 1920s lines up Tong'an, Jimei, Yingxue and Nangying halls, names that honour Tan's native county and overseas ties while alluding to Che Yin who studied by light from a bag of fireflies and Sun Kang who read by the glow of snow; the Jiannan and Furong groups added in the 1950s embrace Furong Lake, and in front of them Shangxian (Upper Moon) Field takes its name from grandstand and track curved like the horn of the waxing moon. The university's reputation as 'the strength of the South' was already sung in its 1921 school song. Bored through the student residential quarter, the Furong Tunnel has walls covered with graffiti made by successive classes — the most visible mark graduation season leaves on campus — and this mountain-and-sea setting is why the university is regularly hailed as one of the most beautiful in China.

Tip: Reservation required for visits. Weekend and holiday crowds are heavy.

• Address: 422 Siming South Road, Siming District, Xiamen, Fujian
• Ticket: Free (reservation required)
• Opening: Visitors enter by real-name reservation (slots released daily at 08:00, 12:00 and 16:00 via the university's official WeChat account); weekday access is more restricted, weekends and public holidays freer — see official notices.

Nanputuo Temple was first built in the Tang dynasty, then fell into ruin and rose again under several different names until the Kangxi reign of the Qing, when the 'sea-pacifying marquis' Shi Lang paid for its reconstruction; because it enshrines Guanyin, as Puji Temple on Mount Putuo in Zhejiang does, it took the name 'Southern Putuo'. Along the central axis four ranges unfold in turn — the Hall of Heavenly Kings, the Mahavira Hall, the Hall of Great Compassion and the Sutra Repository — their red brick and white stone, swallowtail roof ridges and clipped-pottery mosaics displaying the best of southern Fujian craftsmanship, with the rock-garden lotus pond of Wanshi Liangchi in front and the cliff inscriptions and forests of Wulao Peak rising behind. The Sutra Repository treasures Buddhist relics including sutras written in blood and a Guanyin image painted in red ochre. In 1924 the master Taixu took charge of the temple, and in 1925 he founded the Minnan Buddhist Academy, making this one of the earliest modern Buddhist academies in China and the training ground of many eminent monks. The temple's vegetarian kitchen, which shapes southern Fujian mountain and sea ingredients into mock-meat dishes, and its Buddhist tea are celebrated far beyond Xiamen, and the path up behind the temple looks down over Xiamen University and Xiamen Harbour — the city's busiest and most venerated temple. Highlights include the vegetarian restaurant. Tip: keep quiet inside the temple and dress modestly. Practical info: located at 515 Siming South Road, Siming District, Xiamen, Fujian; free admission; opening hours 08:00–18:00.

Tip: Keep quiet inside the temple and dress modestly. Try the famous Nanputuo vegetarian food.

• Address: 515 Siming South Road, Siming District, Xiamen, Fujian
• Ticket: Free
• Opening: 08:00–18:00

Huandao Road winds for tens of kilometres along the south-eastern shore of Xiamen Island, stringing together the beaches and shelterbelts of Baicheng, Huangcuo and Yefengzhai on one side and thin woods and seaside neighbourhoods on the other; its long, level stretches have carried the Xiamen International Marathon since 2003, earning runners' talk of a 'golden coast' course. A timber boardwalk with cycle lanes ties beaches, reefs and old gun batteries into a single line, and is where locals jog and watch the sea after work. Zengcuo'an, halfway along the road, takes its name from the Zeng families who settled there first — in Hokkien cuo means a house and 'an' means a hollow between hills — and the village still keeps the fabric of its eight-century-old fishing settlement: narrow lanes, houses built of cut granite slabs and small patron shrines. Cheap rents drew the first wave of creative entrepreneurs and guesthouse keepers around 2004; by 2015 the 1.25 square kilometres of the village held some 1,600 creative shops and more than 300 lodgings, and received 12 million visitors in a single year, which is how 'China's most artistic fishing village' won its name. Highlights include cycling Huandao Road, Zengcuo'an creative village, the beach sunset and the seafood stalls. Tip: go around dusk for the beautiful sunset. Practical info: located on Huandao Road, Siming District, Xiamen, Fujian; free admission; open all day.

Tip: Go around dusk for the beautiful sunset. Zengcuo'an has an incredible variety of snacks — graze as you stroll.

• Address: Huandao Road, Siming District, Xiamen, Fujian
• Ticket: Free
• Opening: Open all day