Old Xiamen
international seaport since Song Dynasty
During the Song Dynasty, the city was known as a sustainable international seaport. Xiamen was the port of trade first used by Europeans in 1541. It was China's main port in the 19th century for exporting tea. Xiamen was one of the five Chinese treaty ports opened for international trade by the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842 at the end of the First Opium War between Britain and China.