Quanzhou: Emporium of the World in Song-Yuan China

The serial site of Quanzhou illustrates the city’s vibrancy as a maritime emporium during the Song and Yuan periods (10th - 14th centuries AD) and its interconnection with the Chinese hinterland. Quanzhou thrived during a highly significant period for maritime trade in Asia. The site encompasses religious buildings, including the 11th century AD Qingjing Mosque, one of the earliest Islamic edifices in China, Islamic tombs, and a wide range of archaeological remains: administrative buildings, stone docks that were important for commerce and defence, sites of ceramic and iron production, elements of the city’s transportation network, ancient bridges, pagodas, and inscriptions. Known as Zayton in Arabic and western texts of the 10th to 14th centuries AD.

Located on the southeast coast of China, the serial property Quanzhou: Emporium of the World in Song–Yuan China reflects in an exceptional manner the spatial structure that combined production, transportation and marketing and the key institutional, social and cultural factors that contributed to the spectacular rise and prosperity of Quanzhou as a maritime hub of the East and South-east Asia trade network during the 10th – 14th centuries AD. The Song-Yuan Quanzhou emporium system was centred and powered by the city located at the junction of river and sea, with oceans to the south-east that connected it with the world, with mountains to the far north-west that provided for production, and with a water-land transportation network that joined them all together.

The component parts and contributing elements of the property include sites of administrative buildings and structures, religious buildings and statues, cultural memorial sites and monuments, production sites of ceramics and iron, as well as a transportation network formed of bridges, docks and pagodas that guided the voyagers. They comprehensively reflect the distinguishing maritime territorial, socio-cultural and trade structures of Song-Yuan Quanzhou.