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73-570: The city was formerly known as Haikang County ( postal : Hoihong); it was upgraded into a city in 1994. Leizhou is located at the extreme southwestern end of Guangdong and lies on the Leizhou Peninsula . This Guangdong location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Postal romanization Postal romanization was a system of transliterating place names in China developed by postal authorities in

146-620: A humid subtropical climate (Köppen: Cfa ) influenced by the East Asian monsoon ; the summers are long, very hot and humid, and the winters are short, mild and dry. In most years, torrential rain occurs during the monsoon in the second half of May. Fuzhou is also liable to typhoons in late summer and early autumn. The monthly 24-hour average temperature ranges from 11.4 °C (52.5 °F) in January to 29.4 °C (84.9 °F) in July, while

219-469: A Chinese geographical treatise published in the 9th century, says that Fuzhou's name came from Mount Futo a mountain northwest of the city. The mountain's name was then combined with - zhou , meaning "settlement" or "prefecture", in a manner similar to many other Chinese cities. During the Warring States period , the area of Fuzhou was sometimes referred to as Ye ( Chinese : 冶 ), and Fuzhou

292-473: A Japanese landing force on May 13, 1938. The fall of Amoy instantly threatened the security of Fuzhou. On May 23, Japanese ships bombarded Mei-Hua, Huang-chi and Pei-Chiao while Japanese planes continued to harass Chinese forces. Between May 31 and June 1, Chinese gunboats Fu-Ning , Chen-Ning and Suming defending the blockade line in the estuary of the Min River were successively bombed and sunk. Meanwhile,

365-546: A conference held in 1906 in Shanghai . Instead, the conference formally adopted Nanking syllabary. This decision allowed the post office to continue to use various romanizations that it had already selected. Wade–Giles romanization is based on the Beijing dialect , a pronunciation standard since the 1850s. The use of Nanking syllabary did not suggest that the post office considered Nanjing pronunciation to be standard. Rather, it

438-404: A family of his own. One night, he dreamt of a silver-haired elderly man, who told him that he has very good fortune, the young man then asked him what he can do to obtain good luck, the elderly man then floated away. That's when the young man notice the setting moon, and after the moon sank under the clouds, rose from the east a golden sun, he was inspired by the dream and invented oyster cake, which

511-497: A kind of mildly savory pastry), Buddha Jumps over the Wall (佛跳墙), and pork floss ( 肉鬆 ). Many of these street food dishes have a long history and their own local legend; an example would be the oyster cake, according Fuzhou local folklore, in the early Qing dynasty, there was a young man who inherited his father's dim sum business, despite all his hard works, he only managed to earn enough money to feed himself, not enough to raise and feed

584-543: A long-time customs manager, was appointed postal secretary in 1901. Appointing a French national to the top position fulfilled an 1898 commitment by China to "take into account the recommendations of the French government" when selecting staff for the post office. Until 1911, the post office remained part of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service , which meant that Hart was Piry's boss. To resolve

657-517: A major dramatic surge in its refined culture and educational institutions throughout the Song dynasty as Fuzhou produced 10 Fuzhounese zhuangyuan scholars (scholar who is ranked the top first place in the imperial examinations), a large number for a city in the country during that dynasty. The "Hualin" Temple ( 華林寺 , not to be confused with the temple of the same name in Guangzhou ), founded in 964,

730-419: A mixed sweet and sour taste. Soup, served as an indispensable dish in meals, is cooked in various ways with local seasonal fresh vegetables and seafood and often added with local cooking wine ( 福建老酒 ). Fuzhou is famous for its street food and snacks. Some notable street food dishes include Fuzhou fish balls ( 魚丸 ), meat-pastry dumplings ( 扁肉燕 ), oyster cake (海蛎饼), rice scroll soup ( 鼎邊糊 ), guong bian ( 光餅 ;

803-725: A number of romanizations, including Tongyong Pinyin and postal romanization. Foochow Fuzhou is the capital of Fujian , China. The city lies between the Min River estuary to the south and the city of Ningde to the north. Together, Fuzhou and Ningde make up the Mindong linguistic and cultural region. Fuzhou's population was 8,291,268 as of the 2020 Chinese census . Like other prefecture-level cities in China, its administrative area contains both urban and rural areas: in 2020, 72.49% of inhabitants (6,010,242) were urban, while 27.51% (2,281,026) were rural. As of 31 December 2018,

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876-508: A province or prefecture—and the Fujian area was organized as Minzhong Commandery ( 閩中郡 ). The area seems to have continued mostly independent of Chinese control for the next century. The Han dynasty followed the short-lived Qin, and Emperor Gaozu of Han declared both Minyue and neighboring Nanyue to be autonomous vassal kingdoms. In 202 BC, Emperor Gaozu enfeoffed a leader named Wuzhu ( 無諸 ; Old Chinese : Matya ) as King of Minyue, and

949-1115: A rich heritage in Fuzhou's Protestant culture. They supported the creation of hospitals and schools, including the Woolston Memorial Hospital , run by the American-trained Hü King Eng . On August 23, 1884, the Battle of Fuzhou broke out between the French Far East Fleet and the Fujian Fleet of the Qing dynasty. As the result, the Fujian Fleet, one of the four Chinese regional fleets, was destroyed completely in Mawei Harbor. On November 8, 1911, revolutionaries staged an uprising in Fuzhou. After an overnight street battle,

1022-707: A stamp that gave the city of origin in Latin letters, often romanized using Giles's system. In 1896, the Customs Post was combined with other postal services and renamed the Chinese Imperial Post . As a national agency, the Imperial Post was an authority on Chinese place names. When the Wade–Giles system became widespread, some argued that the post office should adopt it. This idea was rejected at

1095-627: A true representation of the varieties of Chinese orthoepy as evinced by the Post Office's repeated desire to transcribe according to "local pronunciation" or "provincial sound-equivalents". At the Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation in 1913, the idea of a national language with a standardized trans-regional phonology was approved. A period of turmoil followed as President Yuan Shikai reversed course and attempted to restore

1168-584: A walled city called Ye ( 冶 ; Old Chinese: Lya ; literally: Beautiful) was built. The founding of Ye in 202 BC has become the traditional founding date of the city of Fuzhou. In 110 BC, the armies of Emperor Wu of Han defeated the Minyue kingdom's armies during the Han–Minyue War and annexed its territory and people into China. Many Minyue citizens were forcibly relocated into the Jianghuai area, and

1241-472: Is also a major city for scientific research, appearing in the global top 50 cities as tracked by the Nature Index . The city is home to several major universities , notably Fuzhou University , one of China's key universities and other public universities, including Fujian Normal University and Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University . The Yuanhe Maps and Records of Prefectures and Counties ,

1314-544: Is also home to many Buddhist monasteries, Taoist temples and Buddhist monks. Apart from mainstream religions, a number of religious worship sites of various local religions are situated in the streets and lanes of Fuzhou. The origins of local religion can be dated back centuries. These diverse religions incorporated elements such as gods and doctrines from other religions and cultures, such as totem worship and traditional legends. For example, Monkey King , originated to monkey worship among local ancients, gradually came to embody

1387-518: Is distinct from the mainstream inland cultures of central China, and in details vary from other areas of the Chinese coast. Besides Mandarin Chinese , the majority local residents of Fuzhou ( Fuzhou people ) also speak Fuzhounese ( 福州話 ), the prestige form of Eastern Min . Min opera , also known as Fuzhou drama, is one of the major operas in Fujian Province. It enjoys popularity in

1460-408: Is narrated by American naval officer, Houghton Freeman. The date is given as October 5, 1944. Fuzhou remained under Japanese control until May 18, 1945, months before the atomic bombings. Following the restoration of Republic control (1946), the administration divisions of Fuzhou were annexed, and administration level was promoted from county-level to city-level officially. Fuzhou was occupied by

1533-445: Is one of the eight Chinese regional cuisines. Dishes are light but flavorful, with particular emphasis on umami taste , known in Chinese cooking as xianwei (simplified Chinese: 鲜味 ; traditional Chinese: 鮮味 ; pinyin: xiānwèi ), as well as retaining the original flavor of the main ingredients instead of masking them. In Fuzhou cuisine, the taste is light compared to that of some other Chinese cooking styles, and often have

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1606-542: Is one of the oldest and surviving wooden structures in China. New city walls were built in 282, 901, 905, and 974, so the city had many layers of walls – more so than the Chinese capital. Emperor Taizong of the Song dynasty ordered the destruction of all the walls in Fuzhou in 978 but new walls were rebuilt later. The latest was built in 1371. During the Southern Song dynasty , Fuzhou became more prosperous; many scholars came to live and work. Among them were Zhu Xi ,

1679-401: Is white like the moon before being lowered into hot grease and coming out golden as the morning sun. According to the legend, after the young man made a fortune out of his invention and his oyster cake was imitated by many others, which was passed down till this day. another example of a Fuzhou street food with a long history is rice scroll soup, which became popular in Fuzhou in the early part of

1752-465: The Beijing dialect that is taught in the Chinese education system. After the Kuomintang (KMT) party came to power in 1927, the capital was moved from Peking ('northern capital') to Nanking ('southern capital'). Peking was renamed to "Peiping" ('northern peace'). The Customs Post, China's first government-run post office, opened to the public and began issuing postage stamps in 1878. This office

1825-765: The Chinese heartland . The administrative and economic center of the Fujian area was still the Ye area during the Sui dynasty (581–618). In 725, the city was formally renamed "Fuzhou". Throughout the mid- Tang dynasty , Fuzhou's economic and cultural institutions grew and developed. The later years of the Tang saw a number of political upheavals in the Chinese heartland such as the An Lushan Rebellion and Huang Chao Rebellion, prompting another wave of northerners to immigrate to

1898-479: The Min Kingdom in 909. The Wang brothers enticed more immigrants from the north, though their kingdom only survived until 945. In 978, Fuzhou was incorporated into the newly founded Song dynasty , though their control of the mountainous regions was tenuous. Fuzhou prospered during the Tang dynasty. Buddhism was quickly adopted by citizens who quickly built many Buddhist temples in the area. Fuzhou underwent

1971-660: The People's Liberation Army with little resistance on 17 August 1949. In the 1950s, the city was on the front line of the conflict with the KMT in Taiwan , as hostile KMT aircraft frequently bombed the city. The bombing on 20 January 1955 was the most serious one, killing hundreds of people. Fuzhou was also involved in violent mass chaos during the Cultural revolution . Different groups of Red Guards fought with each other using guns on

2044-787: The Qing army surrendered. On November 22, 1933, Eugene Chen and the leaders of the National Revolutionary Army 's 19th Army set up the short-lived People's Revolutionary Government of Republican China . Blockaded by Chiang Kai-shek and left without support from the nearby Soviet Republic of China , the PRGRC collapsed within two months. With the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937 , hostilities commenced in Fujian Province. Xiamen (Amoy) fell to

2117-668: The Yue Kingdom (present-day Zhejiang ) fell to the state of Chu . Han dynasty historian Sima Qian wrote that the surviving members of the Yue royal family fled south to what is now Fujian, where they settled alongside the native Yue people, joining Chinese and Yue culture to create Minyue. The First Emperor of Qin unified ancient China in 221 BC and desired to bring the southern and southeast regions under Chinese rule. The Qin dynasty organized its territory into "Commanderies" (Chinese: 郡 ; pinyin: jùn )—roughly equivalent to

2190-656: The American press adopted pinyin in 1979. The International Organization for Standardization followed suit in 1982. Postal romanization remained official in Taiwan until 2002, when Tongyong Pinyin was adopted. In 2009, Hanyu Pinyin replaced Tongyong Pinyin as the official romanization (see Chinese language romanization in Taiwan ). While street names in Taipei have been romanized via Hanyu Pinyin, municipalities throughout Taiwan, such as Kaohsiung and Tainan , presently use

2263-688: The British Vice-Consul in Fuzhou) involved in aid to the Nationalist resistance to Japanese forces in Fujian Province. As part of Operation Ichi-Go (1944), the last large-scale Japanese offensive in China in World War II, Japanese troops intended to isolate Fuzhou and the Fujian Province corridor to Nationalist forces in western China and the wartime capital of Chongqing. One account of Japanese troops re-taking of Fuzhou city itself

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2336-842: The Central Government. In 1990, Xi Jinping served as the Secretary of the CPC Fuzhou Municipal Committee. He proposed the Fuzhou 3820 Project to establish Fuzhou as the political economic cultural educational transportation and technological center of Fujian Province and the West Coast Economic Zone of the Taiwan Straits. He also planned the development of Fuzhou for the next hundred years. He believed that, with Guangzhou to

2409-480: The Chinese ship Chu-Tai berthed at Nan-Tai was damaged. The Chinese Navy's Harbor Command School, barracks, shipyard, hospital and marine barracks at Ma-Wei were successively bombed. Fuzhou is recorded as having fallen to Japanese forces in 1938. The extent of Japanese command and control of the city of Fuzhou itself as opposed to the port at Mawei and the Min River Estuary is uncertain. By 1941 (5/7),

2482-723: The East Lake and West Lake were constructed in Ye, as well as a canal system. The core of modern Fuzhou grew around these three water systems, though the East and West Lakes no longer exist. In 308, during the War of the Eight Princes at the end of the Jin dynasty, the first large-scale migration of Chinese immigrants moved to the south and southeast of China began, followed by subsequent waves during later periods of warfare or natural disaster in

2555-721: The Fuzhou area and in neighboring parts of Fujian such as the northeast and northwest areas where the Fuzhou language is spoken, as well as in Taiwan and the Malay Archipelago . It became a fixed opera in the early 20th century. There are more than 1,000 plays of Min opera, most of which originate from folk tales, historical novels, or ancient legends, including such traditional plays as "Making Seal", "The Purple Jade Hairpin" and "Switching Fairy Peach with Litchi". The two traditional mainstream religions practiced in Fuzhou are Mahayana Buddhism and Taoism . Traditionally, many people practice both religions simultaneously. The city

2628-627: The Fuzhou current administrative divisions were formed officially, namely, 5 districts and 8 counties. In 1990 and 1994, Fuqing ( Foochow Romanized : Hók-chiăng ) and Changle (Foochow Romanized: Diòng-lŏ̤h ) counties were promoted to county-level cities ; Changle became a district in 2017. Despite these changes, the administrative image of "5 districts and 8 counties" is still held popularly among local residents. Fuzhou's entire area only covers 9.65 percent of Fujian Province. The city of Fuzhou has direct jurisdiction over 6 districts , 1 county-level city , and 6 counties : The culture of Fuzhou

2701-660: The God of Wealth in Fuzhou after the novel Journey to the West was issued in Ming dynasty . As the most popular religion in the Min River Valley, the worship of Lady Linshui is viewed as one of the three most influential local religions in Fujian, the other two being the worship of Mazu and Baosheng Dadi ( 保生大帝 ). Fuzhou cuisine is most notably one of the four traditional cooking styles of Fujian cuisine , which in turn

2774-495: The Japanese ousted A. M. Chapelain, the last French head of the Chinese post. The post office had been under French administration almost continuously since Piry's appointment as postal secretary in 1901. In 1958, Communist China announced that it was adopting the pinyin romanization system. Implementing the new system was a gradual process. The government did not get around to abolishing postal romanization until 1964. Even then,

2847-517: The Post Office, quietly ordered a return to Nanking syllabary "until such time as uniformity is possible." Although the Soothill-Wade period was brief, it was a time when 13,000 offices were created, a rapid and unprecedented expansion. At the time the policy was reversed, one third of all postal establishments used Soothill-Wade spelling. The Ministry published a revised pronunciation standard based strictly on Jilu Mandarin in 1932. In 1943,

2920-535: The Tanshishan Culture ( 曇石山文化 ), from around 3000 BC—have been discovered and excavated in the Fuzhou area. During the Warring States period (c. 475–221 BC), Chinese began referring to the modern Fujian area as Min Yue ( 閩越 ), suggesting that the native inhabitants of the area were a branch of the Yue peoples , a diverse population of non-Chinese tribes who once inhabited most of southern China. In 306 BC,

2993-516: The Wade–Giles method of transliteration. This system had been created by Thomas Francis Wade in 1867. It is based on pronunciation in Beijing. Giles's dictionary also gives pronunciation in the dialects of various other cities, allowing the reader to create locally based transliteration. From January 1893 to September 1896, local postal services issued postage stamps that featured the romanized name of

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3066-511: The Wade–Giles system to be specific to English. Atlases explaining postal romanization were issued in 1907, 1919, 1933, and 1936. The ambiguous result of the 1906 conference led critics to complain that postal romanization was idiosyncratic. According to modern scholar Lane J. Harris: What they have criticized is actually the very strength of postal romanization. That is, postal romanization accommodated local dialects and regional pronunciations by recognizing local identity and language as vital to

3139-578: The West since Marco Polo . The Ryukyu Kingdom established an embassy in Fuzhou. In 1839, Lin Zexu , who himself was a Fuzhou native, was appointed by the Daoguang Emperor to enforce the imperial ban on the opium trade in Canton . His unsuccessful actions, however, precipitated the disastrous First Opium War with Great Britain, and Lin, who had become a scapegoat for China's failure in war,

3212-530: The Yue ethnic group was mostly assimilated into the Chinese, causing a sharp decline in Ye's inhabitants. The area was eventually re-organized as a county in 85 BC. During the Three Kingdoms period , southeast China was nominally under the control of Eastern Wu , and the Fuzhou area had a shipyard for the coastal and Yangtze River fleets. In 282, during the Jin dynasty , two artificial lakes known simply as

3285-597: The airport in Changle was built to support the city's expansion towards the sea. On December 13, 1993, a raging fire swept through a textile factory in Fuzhou and claimed the lives of 60 workers. On October 2, 2005, floodwaters from Typhoon Longwang swept away a military school , killing at least 80 paramilitary officers. Fuzhou is located in the northeast coast of Fujian province, connects jointly northwards with Ningde and Nanping, southwards with Quanzhou and Putian, westwards with Sanming respectively. Fuzhou has

3358-686: The annual mean is 20.5 °C (68.9 °F). With monthly percent possible sunshine ranging from 24 percent in March to 54 percent in July, the city receives 1,607 hours of bright sunshine annually. Extremes since 1951 have ranged from −1.9 °C (29 °F) on 25 January 2016 to 41.7 °C (107 °F) on 26 July 2003. Snow is very rare, having covered the ground last times in February 1957, December 1975 and December 1991. See or edit raw graph data . The administrative divisions of Fuzhou have been changed frequently throughout history. From 1983,

3431-563: The biggest chickens in the world. Between 1405 and 1433, a fleet of the Ming Imperial navy under Admiral Zheng He sailed from Fuzhou to the Indian Ocean seven times; on three occasions the fleet landed on the east coast of Africa. Before the last sailing, Zheng erected a stele dedicated to the goddess Tian-Fei (Matsu) near the seaport . The Ming government gave a monopoly over Philippine trade to Fuzhou, which at times

3504-557: The city and soon set up the first missionary station there. ABCFM was followed by the Methodist Episcopal Missionary Society that was led by Revs. M. C. White and J. D. Collins , who reached Fuzhou in early September 1847. The Church Missionary Society also arrived in the city in May 1850. These three Protestant agencies remained in Fuzhou until the communist revolution in China in the 1950s, leaving

3577-402: The city is Pehking . The irregular oo in "Soochow" is to distinguish this city from Xuzhou in northern Jiangsu. The other postal romanizations are based on "Southern Mandarin", the historical court dialect based on the Nanjing dialect , which used to be the imperial lingua franca of the late Ming and early Qing court. Pinyin spellings are based on Standard Chinese , a form based on

3650-399: The city is recorded as having returned to Nationalist control. The British Consulate in Fuzhou is noted as operational from 1941 to 1944 after the United Kingdom Declaration of War on Japan in December 1941. Western visitors to Fuzhou in the period 1941–1944 include the Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett in 1942 and the British scientist Joseph Needham in May 1944. Both visitors record

3723-405: The city they served using local pronunciation. An imperial edict issued in 1896 designated the Customs Post a national postal service and renamed it the Chinese Imperial Post . The local post offices in the Treaty Ports were incorporated into the new service. The Customs Post was smaller than other postal services in China, such as the British. As the Imperial Post, it grew rapidly and soon became

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3796-446: The decision to use Nanking syllabary was not intended to suggest that the post office recognized any specific dialect as standard. The Lower Yangtze Mandarin dialect spoken in Nanjing makes more phonetic distinctions than other dialects. A romanization system geared to this dialect can be used to reflect pronunciation in a wider variety of dialects. Southern Mandarin is widely spoken in both Jiangsu and Anhui . In Giles' idealization,

3869-424: The dominant player in the market. In 1899, Hart, as inspector general of posts, asked postmasters to submit romanizations for their districts. Although Hart asked for transliterations "according to the local pronunciation", most postmasters were reluctant to play lexicographer and simply looked up the relevant characters in a dictionary. The spellings that they submitted generally followed the Wade–Giles system, which

3942-418: The idea of building a high-speed rail corridor to Taipei . Xi Jinping served as the Secretary of the Fuzhou Municipal Committee for more than six years and lived in Fuzhou for nearly thirteen years, developing a deep affection for the city. When he visited Fuzhou again in 2021, he remarked that Fuzhou could make significant contributions to the great rejuvenation and unification of the Chinese nation, noting that

4015-454: The late 19th and early 20th centuries. For many cities, the corresponding postal romanization was the most common English-language form of the city's name from the 1890s until the 1980s, when postal romanization was replaced by pinyin , but the system remained in place on Taiwan until 2002. In 1892, Herbert Giles created a romanization system called the Nanking syllabary . The Imperial Maritime Customs Post Office would cancel postage with

4088-434: The modern-day Northern Min and Eastern Min areas. In 879, a large part of the city was captured by the army of Huang Chao during their rebellion against the Tang government. In 893, the warlord brothers Wang Chao and Wang Shenzhi captured Fuzhou in a rebellion against the Tang dynasty, successfully gaining control of the entire Fujian Province and eventually proclaiming their founding of an independent kingdom they called

4161-414: The most celebrated Chinese philosopher after Confucius , and Xin Qiji , the greatest composer of the ci form of poetry. Marco Polo , an Italian guest of the Emperor Kubilai , transcribed , after the conventions of Italian orthography , the place name as Fugiu . This was not the local Min pronunciation but that of the mandarin administrative class. According to Odoric of Pordenone , Fuzhou had

4234-466: The post office did not adopt pinyin, but merely withdrew Latin characters from official use, such as in postal cancellation markings. Mapmakers of the time followed various approaches. Private atlas makers generally used postal romanization in the 1940s, but they later shifted to Wade–Giles. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency used a mix of postal romanization and Wade–Giles. The U.S. Army Map Service used Wade–Giles exclusively. The U.S. government and

4307-412: The presence of a British Consul and a Fuzhou Club comprising western businessmen. In The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom , author Simon Winchester relates the visit of Dr Needham in 1944. Needham encountered the American government agent (John Caldwell) and the British SIS agent ( Murray MacLehose working undercover as

4380-425: The romanization issue, Piry organized an Imperial Postal Joint-Session Conference in Shanghai in the spring of 1906. This was a joint postal and telegraphic conference. The conference resolved that existing spellings would be retained for names already transliterated. Accents, apostrophes, and hyphens would be dropped to facilitate telegraphic transmission. The requirement for addresses to be given in Chinese characters

4453-413: The south and Shanghai to the north Fuzhou's geographical location was ideal for becoming an international metropolis between the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta. He proposed supporting strategies such as the Fujian-Zhejiang-Jiangxi-Anhui Fuzhou Economic Cooperation Zone the Fuzhou Metropolitan Circle, Maritime Fuzhou the Minjiang Estuary Golden Triangle and a Modern International City as well as

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4526-414: The speaker consistently makes various phonetic distinctions not made in Beijing dialect (or in the dialect of any other specific city). Giles created the system to encompass a range of dialects. For the French-led post office, an additional advantage of the system was that it allowed "the romanization of non-English speaking people to be met as far as possible," as Piry put it. That is to say, Piry considered

4599-423: The streets of the city, and even attacking the People's Liberation Army. Under the reform and opening policy since the late 1970s, Fuzhou has developed rapidly. In 1982, Fuzhou became the first city in China where the stored program control was introduced, which marked a milestone in the history of telecommunications in China. In 1984, Fuzhou was chosen as one of the first branches of Open Coastal Cities by

4672-427: The teaching of Literary Chinese . Yuan died in 1916 and the Ministry of Education published a pronunciation standard now known as Old National Pronunciation for Guoyu in 1918. The post office reverted to Wade's system in 1920 and 1921. It was the era of the May Fourth Movement , when language reform was the rage. The post office adopted a dictionary by William Edward Soothill as a reference. The Soothill-Wade system

4745-432: The total population was estimated at 7,740,000 whom 4,665,000 lived in the built-up ( or metro ) area made of five urban districts plus Minhou County. In 2015, Fuzhou was ranked as the 10th fastest growing metropolitan area in the world by Brookings Institution . Fuzhou is listed as No. 20 in the China Integrated City Index 2016's total ranking, a study conducted by the National Development and Reform Commission . Fuzhou

4818-565: Was an attempt to accommodate a variety of Mandarin pronunciations with a single romanization system. The spelling "Amoy" is based on pronunciation of Xiamen in the neighboring Zhangzhou dialect of Hokkien 廈門 ; Ēe-mûi , which historically contributed to the formation of the local Amoy dialect of Hokkien in Xiamen . "Peking" is carried over from the d'Anville map which also came from older texts, such as Italian Jesuit Martino Martini 's De Bello Tartarico Historia (1654) and Novus Atlas Sinensis (1655). In Nanking syllabary,

4891-427: Was dropped. For new transliterations, local pronunciation would be followed in Guangdong as well as in parts of Guangxi and Fujian . In other areas, a system called Nanking syllabary would be used. Nanking syllabary is one of several transliteration systems presented by Giles to represent various local dialects. Nanjing had once been the capital and its dialect was, like that of Beijing, a pronunciation standard. But

4964-464: Was exiled to the northwestern section of the empire. The Treaty of Nanjing (1842), which put an end to the conflict, made Fuzhou (then known to Westerners as Foochow) one of five Chinese treaty ports , and it became completely open to Western merchants and missionaries. Fuzhou was one of the most important Protestant mission fields in China. On January 2, 1846, the first Protestant missionary, Rev. Stephen Johnson (missionary) from ABCFM , entered

5037-606: Was incorporated into China proper during Qin dynasty . The city's name was changed numerous times between the 3rd and 9th centuries before finally settling on Fuzhou in 948. In Chinese, the city is sometimes referred to by the poetic nickname Rongcheng (Chinese: 榕城 ; Foochow Romanized: Ṳ̀ng-siàng ), lit. 'The Banyan City'. In older English publications, the name is variously romanized as Foochow , Foo-Chow , Fuchow , Fūtsu , Fuh-Chow , Hock Chew , and Hokchew . The remains of two Neolithic cultures—the Huqiutou Culture ( 虎丘頭文化 ), from around 5000 BC, and

5110-561: Was part of the Imperial Maritime Customs Service , led by Irishman Robert Hart . By 1882, the Customs Post had offices in twelve Treaty Ports : Shanghai , Amoy , Chefoo , Chinkiang , Chungking , Foochow , Hankow , Ichang , Kewkiang , Nanking , Weihaiwei , and Wuhu . Local offices had postmarking equipment so mail was marked with a romanized form of the city's name. In addition, there were companies that provided local postal service in each of these cities. A Chinese-English Dictionary by Herbert Giles, published in 1892, popularized

5183-440: Was shared with Quanzhou . Galeote Pereira , a Portuguese soldier and trader, was taken prisoner during the pirate extermination campaign of 1549 and imprisoned in Fuzhou. Later transferred to a form of internal exile elsewhere in the province, Pereira escaped to Langbaijiao in 1553. The record of his experiences in the Ming Empire, logged by the Jesuits at Goa in 1561, was the first non-clerical account of China to reach

5256-603: Was the standard method of transliteration at this time. The post office published a draft romanization map in 1903. Disappointed with the Wade-based map, Hart issued another directive in 1905. This one told postmasters to submit romanizations "not as directed by Wade, but according to accepted or usual local spellings." Local missionaries could be consulted, Hart suggested. However, Wade's system did reflect pronunciation in Mandarin-speaking areas. Théophile Piry,

5329-484: Was used for newly created offices. Existing post offices retained their romanizations. Critics described the Ministry's standard, now called Old National Pronunciation , as a mishmash of dialects, bookish, and reminiscent of previous dynasties. While drawing phonetic features from Beijing dialect, many phonological features of Southern Mandarin had been retained. In December 1921, Henri Picard-Destelan , co-director of

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