Fujian · No Cars, and a Skyline Across the Channel
Gulangyu (鼓浪屿)
An island of about two square kilometres off Xiamen, built up between the 1840s and the 1930s as an international settlement and now free of motor traffic. The city across the channel is six hundred metres away and a century newer.
Quick Facts
The Short Version
| What it is | A small hilly island of villas, churches, consulates and lanes, opposite the centre of Xiamen |
|---|---|
| Where | Xiamen, in southern Fujian, reached only by ferry |
| Heritage status | Inscribed by UNESCO in 2017 as Kulangsu, a Historic International Settlement |
| How it began | Xiamen was opened to foreign trade in 1843. Foreign residents settled on this island, and a formal international settlement with its own council was established in 1903 |
| Who built it | Consuls, missionaries and, in large numbers, Chinese families returning wealthy from Southeast Asia |
| Traffic | None. No private cars, no motorbikes. A few small electric service vehicles and otherwise walking |
| Its other reputation | Music. The island has an unusual density of pianos in its history and a piano museum now |
| Time needed | A full day, and a night if you can manage it |
Why Go
A Settlement, Not a Colony
1. The buildings are a mixture, and that is the point
The easy assumption is that this is a European quarter dropped onto a Chinese island, and it is not. Xiamen opened to foreign trade in 1843, foreign residents moved onto this island because it was cooler and quieter than the port, and in 1903 the arrangement was formalised as an international settlement governed by a council with several foreign powers and Chinese representation on it.
The consulates and churches are the part people expect. The more interesting part is who else built here: Chinese families who had made money in Penang, Singapore, Manila and Java, and who came back and built houses that combine what they had seen there with southern Fujian construction. Verandas, colonnades and plaster mouldings sit on top of local roof forms and local brick. UNESCO’s 2017 inscription is explicitly for that fusion rather than for colonial architecture, and once you are looking for it you cannot stop seeing it.
2. Look east, at the other century
The channel between here and Xiamen is a few hundred metres wide. On this side: two and three storey buildings with tiled roofs, banyan trees, stone lanes and no vehicles. On that side: an unbroken line of towers, including a pair that dominates every photograph anyone takes from these beaches.
That view is in most of the pictures below because it is impossible to avoid, and it is worth standing and looking at rather than treating as a backdrop. Two versions of the same city, roughly a century apart, close enough to shout across. Very few places let you see that so plainly.
The catch. It is extremely busy. The island takes a very large number of day visitors, the main lanes near the pier are a solid corridor of snack stalls and souvenir shops, and the ferry system is genuinely confusing: different terminals for visitors and residents, timed tickets, and a daily cap. Almost everything difficult about a visit here is solved by staying the night, which almost nobody does.
Orientation
The Ferry Is the Complicated Part
Visitors and residents use different terminals, and as a visitor you will normally leave from the cruise terminal north of the city centre rather than from the old ferry pier opposite the island. Tickets are timed and sold in advance, there is a daily visitor cap, and passports are required. Buy ahead and allow time to find the right terminal.
Once you land, the island is small enough to walk end to end in under an hour. The lanes near the pier are the crowded part; the south and west of the island and the high ground around Sunlight Rock thin out quickly. There is no transport, so wear shoes you can walk hills in.
Practical
Things Worth Knowing
Stay a night
The day crowd leaves on the last ferries and the island becomes a different place. This is the single best piece of advice about Gulangyu.
Book the ferry before you need it
The cap and the timed tickets catch out people who turn up expecting to walk on. In season that can cost you the day.
Walk away from the pier immediately
Ten minutes in any direction gets you out of the souvenir corridor and into the lanes the listing is about.
Look for the hybrid details
Balustrades on a Fujian roof, a colonnade with local brick behind it. Once you see the mix you are looking at architecture rather than at old houses.
Timing
When to Go
| Season | The case for | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| October to December | Warm, dry and clear, and the most comfortable walking of the year | The first week of October is very busy |
| March to May | Mild and green, with the sea still calm | Fujian spring brings long spells of drizzle and low cloud |
| June to September | Hot and bright, with long evenings on the shore | Typhoon season. Ferries stop when a storm is close, sometimes for days |
| January to February | Cool, quiet and cheap | Grey and damp, and some smaller museums keep short hours |
Context
Why Xiamen, and Why This Island
Xiamen, long known abroad as Amoy, was one of the five ports opened to foreign trade by the treaty that ended the first Opium War in 1842. What followed was a century in which the city sat at the meeting point of Chinese and foreign commerce, with this island as the residential and institutional end of that arrangement: houses, schools, hospitals, churches, a consular presence and eventually a municipal council.
The other half of the story is emigration. Southern Fujian sent very large numbers of people to Southeast Asia over the same period, and some of them came back with money. Their houses here are physical evidence of a circuit that ran from Fujian to the Straits and back, and that circuit is a much bigger part of this region’s history than the treaty ports are.
The music is real, if heavily marketed. Missionary schools taught Western music from the nineteenth century, families bought pianos, and the island produced a disproportionate number of Chinese musicians. The piano museum is worth an hour. The claim that you will hear playing through open windows is a slogan rather than a schedule.
Nearby
Other Stops on the Same Trip
Spot · 80 km northeast
Mount Qingyuan (清源山)
The granite hill above Quanzhou, with a Song dynasty stone Laozi at its foot, and the other reason to be on this coast.
Spot · half a day inland
Fujian Tulou (福建土楼)
The earth-walled communal houses of the Hakka and Minnan interior, which is the opposite of everything this island is.
Where to Base
Xiamen (厦门)
Xiamen is the base and is an unusually pleasant Chinese city to spend time in: a compact seafront, the ring road along the coast, Nanputuo temple and the university campus beside it, and food that is worth planning around.
Three or four days covers the city, this island with a night on it, and a day out to the tulou or up to Quanzhou. It is also one of the easier places in China to arrive from abroad, with direct flights from much of Southeast Asia.
Experiences
What You Can Actually Do Here
On site · full day
The island on foot
The lanes away from the pier, Sunlight Rock for the view across, the south shore, and whichever of the house museums is open.
On site · evening
After the last ferry
The lanes empty, the shore is quiet and the towers across the water light up. Requires a bed on the island.
Guided · 4 days
The Fujian coast
Xiamen and this island, then Quanzhou for the maritime trade sites, or inland for the tulou, with someone who can explain the Southeast Asian connection.
Book the ferry early, walk away from the pier at once, and if you possibly can, sleep on the island. Then find a spot on the eastern shore in the evening and look across the channel. A hundred and eighty years of one city’s history is laid out between where you are standing and the towers on the other side, and the water in between is narrow enough to see across clearly.
Get a Night on the Island
Tell us your dates and our local team will sort the timed ferry tickets, put you in a guest house on the island rather than back in the city, and add Quanzhou or the tulou to the same trip.