Yantai Mountain 福州烟台山

About Yantai Mountain

Its streets retain the churches, schools and former consular buildings of the city’s foreign-trade period. The rough stone walls of Shicuo Church offer a particularly clear contrast with the surrounding domestic architecture.

The hilltop park adds a quieter garden setting above the commercial streets. The district is best read as a group of streets and buildings; access to individual historic interiors varies.

Also known as Tengshan (藤山), Cangqianshan (仓前山) or Tianningshan (天宁山), the hill takes its main name from a beacon tower, or 'yandun' (烟墩), that the Fuzhou prefectural government built on its summit in the late Yuan dynasty to strengthen river defenses and signal alongside a fort on Zhongzhou Island; the tower no longer survives. A Ming-dynasty salt warehouse built at its northern foot gave rise to the alternative name Cangqianshan. After the Opium War, when Fuzhou became a treaty port, several countries established consulates on the hill and built churches, schools and hospitals there, and local residents' resistance pushed most foreign settlement onto the then-sparsely populated hill.

The hilltop park was created in 1962 by the Fuzhou city government using the summit and surrounding open ground, and opened to the public on 1 October 1964; its gate stands on the west side of Meiwu Road, on the former site of the rear hall of Ming Zhen'an. Reconstruction from 1972 added pavilions, terraces, winding corridors, ponds, fountains, rockeries and stone furniture, along with more than 3,000 trees including banyan, camphor, kapok, phoenix and pine, and the ruins of the old beacon tower lie within its grounds. In 2018-2019, the park underwent a large-scale renovation in which most of its concrete pavilions and corridors were demolished and rebuilt in timber.

What to look for

• Shicuo Church, the stone-built former St John’s Church.
• Meiwu Road’s historic streetscape and the park on the hill above it.

The surrounding area

The provincial capital offers historic residences and a specific broth-and-snack food culture.

Location & getting there

Getting to Yantai Mountain

Use Shangteng Station on Metro Line 1 for the Cangqian Road side of the district. Meiwu Road leads into the hill area; the hilltop park entrance is on the western side of Meiwu Road.