Anhai is a town in southern Fujian province, People's Republic of China. It is located in the far southern suburbs of the

Quanzhou Quanzhou, postal map romanization, alternatively known as Chinchew, is a prefecture-level city, prefecture-level port city on the north bank of the Jin River, beside the Taiwan Strait in southern Fujian, China. It is Fujian's largest metrop ...

metropolitan area. and is separated by Weitou Bay () from Kinmen, which is controlled by the Republic of China on Taiwan. Administratively, Anhai is part of Jinjiang County-level City, which in its turn is subordinated to

. The highest point in the town's administrative area is Mount Língyuán () at .

History

Anhai was known as Anping () during the Song dynasty. The famous Song-era Anping Bridge crosses a tidal estuary to the west of town, connecting Anhai with its western neighbor, the town of Shuitou, which administratively belongs in Nan'an. Shuixin

Chan Chan may refer to: Places *Chan (commune), Cambodia *Chan Lake, by Chan Lake Territorial Park in Northwest Territories, Canada People *Chan (surname), romanization of various Chinese surnames (including 陳, 曾, 詹, 戰, and 田) *Chan Caldwel ...

Temple is located by the eastern end of the bridge. Anhai was an important port during the Ming and early Qing periods. The 19th-century researchers writing for the Hakluyt Society thought Anhai was the port of "Tansuso" visited by

Martín de Rada Martín de Rada (Pamplona, Navarre, Spain June 30, 1533 - South China Sea, June 12, 1578; also known as Herrada) was one of the first members of the Order of Saint Augustine (OSA) to evangelize the Philippines, as well as one of the first Christi ...

, but later research identified Tansuso as Zhongzuosuo (), which is in modern Xiamen, some to the west. Anhai regained importance in the later 19th century when

sand bar In oceanography, geomorphology, and geoscience, a shoal is a natural submerged ridge, bank, or bar that consists of, or is covered by, sand or other unconsolidated material and rises from the bed of a body of water to near the surface. It o ...

s created by the Jin and Luo

rivers A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...

blocked the principal harbor for

; the city retained its size and importance to local trade but maritime commerce was redirected to Anhai.

Notes

References

Township-level divisions of Fujian Jinjiang, Fujian {{Fujian-geo-stub