Xiamen, also known as Amoy /əˈmɔɪ/, POJ Hokkien: ε̄-mûiⁿ, is a major city on the southeast coast of the People's Republic of China. It is administered as a sub-provincial city of Fujian province with an area of 1,699.39 square kilometres and population of 3,531,347 at the 2010 Census. The city's urban area includes the old urban island area and covers all six districts of Xiamen, and has a total urban population of 1,861,289. It also borders Quanzhou to the north and Zhangzhou making this a unique built up area of more than five million people. The Jinmen Islands administered by the Republic of China are less than 10 kilometres away.Xiamen and the surrounding southern Fujian countryside are the ancestral home to large communities of overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. The city was a treaty port in the 19th century and one of the four original Special Economic Zones opened to foreign investment and trade when China began economic reforms in the early 1980s. It is endowed with educational and cultural institutions supported by the overseas Chinese diaspora. In 2006, Xiamen was ranked as China's second "most suitable city for living", as well as China's "most romantic leisure city" in 2011.
