Area: 1,565 km² (300 km² water)
Sea Area: 340 km2, including 74 km2 of shallow sea and mudflats.
Climate: Subtropical, and there are typhoons three to four times a year on average.
Population: Medium-size population about 2.5 million, Xiamen attracts over five million domestic tourists each year, and tourists and port traffic contend for priority in the use of seawater areas. The population is 1.37 million as of 2002.
GDP: ¥38,567 (ca. US$4,660) per capita (2003), ranked 9th in China.

Xiamen, also Amoy, city in southern China, in Fujian Province, on Xiamen Island, a port at the mouth of the Jiulong River. Strategically situated near the Chinmen (Quemoy) Islands and Taiwan, Xiamen is a fishing and manufacturing center. Products include ships, processed food, and chemicals.

Portuguese traders arrived in Xiamen in the 1540s; they were followed by British merchants in the 17th century and by French and Dutch traders in the 18th century. The port was closed to foreigners in the 1750s and was not reopened until 1842, when it became one of the first treaty ports (see China: History). Xiamen was an important tea-exporting center in the late 19th century, and a large foreign population lived on the island of Gulang, which is located in Xiamen's harbor. Xiamen was also a gateway for commerce with Taiwan. Japanese forces occupied the port from 1938 to 1945. The city was developed as an industrial center, with improved rail and road links with inland China, after trade with Taiwan ended in 1949. Population (1991) 357,290.

Ē-mn̂g is a coastal sub-provincial city in southeastern Fujian province, People's Republic of China. It looks out to the Taiwan Strait and borders the cities of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou to the north and south respectively. Ē-mn̂g is also known as Amoy or Xiamen in the European-language media. For most speakers of the Ē-mn̂g vernacular, the city name is Ē-mn̂g (using the POJ romanization). The same name is pronounced Ē-mûi in dialects spoken in the region west and southwest of the city, giving rise to the colonial-European spelling of Amoy. Xiamen is the name in Mandarin. The modern toponym literally means "The Gate of the Grand Mansion". Earlier, the name was written 下門 (same pronunciation), meaning "Lower Gate"--possibly because of its position at the mouth of the Nine Dragon River--but the authorities found the name too unrefined.

Ē-mn̂g and the surrounding countryside is famous for being an ancestral home to overseas Chinese and Taiwanese as well as one of China's earliest special economic zones in the 1980s. It covers an area of 1,565 km² with a local population of 2.01 million. Updated Last: September 2003

Sources: http://www.adb.org/Documents/Profiles/PPTA/36506012.ASP ; Microsoft Encarta 2006 ; www.wikipedia.org