Meizhou overview 梅州

About Meizhou

In town, the Hakka Museum uses genealogies and house models to explain settlement and family life. Beyond the urban area, Yannanfei’s tea fields and Lingguang Temple beneath Yinna Mountain show a different setting. Keep the urban museum visit and the rural excursion as distinct parts of the trip: Meizhou’s name covers a much larger area than its central neighbourhoods.

Neolithic tools and pottery have been found in Meizhou's Meixian district, with kiln sites from the Western Zhou dynasty and bells from the Warring States period. The area was historically known as Chengxiang (程乡) and Jiaying (嘉应); a Chengxiang county was established in 483 CE, and in 971 CE, the fourth year of the Northern Song Kaibao era, the area was reorganized as Meizhou.

Meizhou is a prefecture-level city in northeastern Guangdong at the junction with Fujian and Jiangxi, bordering Heyuan, Shanwei, Jieyang and Chaozhou, and Fujian's Zhangzhou, Longyan and Jiangxi's Ganzhou. It lies in the northern Lianhua Mountains, in the hilly upper and middle Han River basin, with Fenghuang Mountain to the east. The Meijiang River (upstream the Qinjiang) flows southwest to northeast through the city and joins the Tingjiang at Sanheba in Dapu County to form the Han River. It comprises Meijiang and Meixian districts, Xingning City and five counties.

The city is mostly mountainous, summarized locally as 'eight parts hill, one part water, one part field': mountains cover 24.3 percent of its area and hills and terraces 56.6 percent, with plains only about 13.7 percent. The region is known for Hakka residential forms including the encircling weilongwu (围龙屋) and walled earth buildings (土围楼), with Xingning City alone accounting for nearly half of Meizhou's weilongwu.

What to look for

• The Hakka Museum’s genealogies and housing models introduce the region’s family and building traditions.
• Yannanfei’s tea fields and Lingguang Temple’s wooded mountain setting provide two distinct rural visits.

Location & getting there

Getting to Meizhou

Start the urban visit at the Hakka Museum, 2 Dongshan Avenue in Meijiang. For the rural extension, arrange transport specifically to Yannanfei in Yanyang Town or Lingguang Temple in Yinna Village, Meixian; these are separate destinations outside central Meizhou.