The UNESCO Maritime Silk Road city — where Arab, Hindu, and Manichean temples share the same streets
Quanzhou was the starting point of the Maritime Silk Road for 500 years — Ibn Battuta called it one of the two greatest ports in the world; Marco Polo called it Zayton, 'the greatest haven of ships in the world.' At its peak in the Song and Yuan dynasties it was a genuinely cosmopolitan city where Arab, Persian, Indian, and Jewish merchants built mosques, temples, and churches. The UNESCO inscription in 2021 recognised 22 sites across the city representing this extraordinary multicultural heritage — including a 13th-century mosque, a Manichaean temple (one of only two surviving in the world),…
Quanzhou's rise as a maritime hub began in the Tang Dynasty but reached its peak under the Song (960–1279 CE) and Yuan (1271–1368 CE) dynasties, when it supplanted Guangzhou as China's primary international port. The city's wealth came from silk, ceramics, and tea exports; returning ships brought pepper, spices, ivory, and the world's religions. The Arab merchant community was large enough to have their own legal court; Hindu Tamil merchants built a Shiva temple whose carvings are the only surviving Tang-era Hindu temple in China. The Ming Dynasty's maritime bans gradually shifted trade away…