Discover Xiamen
Xiamen University (Siming campus)
厦门大学思明校区
Often called China's most beautiful campus - 1920s Minnan-style halls with swallowtail roofs, a lake, and a tunnel that leads straight out to the beach. Founded in 1921 by an overseas-Chinese rubber magnate.
The story
What makes this place special
Xiamen University was founded in 1921 by Tan Kah Kee (Chen Jiageng), the Singapore-based rubber magnate from Jimei who spent much of his fortune on schools in his home district. The Siming campus occupies the southern tip of Xiamen island between the hills and the sea. Its early buildings are in the style known as Jiageng architecture — Western-plan bodies with Chinese roofs, built in red brick and granite — and 'the early buildings of Jimei School Village and Xiamen University' were listed together as a national key protected site in 2006.
What you’ll discover
A campus that is also a landscape: Furong Lake with the Jiageng main buildings around it, the Qunxian block of 1920s halls, the Lu Xun statue and the Museum of Anthropology, the Jiannan auditorium group, and the Shangxianchang — a stadium built into a natural hollow with tiered stone seating, the most striking thing on the campus. The Furong Tunnel, a long pedestrian tunnel under the hill, is covered end to end in student graffiti and murals. Baicheng beach is just outside the campus wall.
A little local insight
Good to know before you go
- Visiting requires a booking through the university's own visitor system, not a tourist platform: search for the WeChat visitor reservation account, book at least a day and at most a few days ahead, slots release early each morning and run out, and there is no walk-up admission. Entry is through the visitor centre gate only.
- Entry windows on teaching days are narrow — a short midday window — and much longer during vacations. Check which applies to your date, because turning up outside the window with a booking still fails.
- Walk the Furong Tunnel. It is the thing students will tell you about and no guidebook leads you to it, and it changes continuously as the paintings are redone.
- The Shangxianchang stadium is the best piece of architecture on campus — a 1950s sports ground set into a bowl in the hillside with the Jiannan buildings above it. Go to the top of the stone tiers and look back.
- It is a working university. Term-time lunchtime means thousands of students moving between buildings; behave like a visitor to someone's workplace, which is what you are.
When to come
Within the permitted entry window, as early in it as possible. Autumn and winter for weather. Vacation periods give much longer access and a quieter campus, at the cost of the campus feeling empty.
Getting around
Reasonable in parts. The campus roads and the Furong Lake area are paved with gentle gradients and are manageable in a wheelchair, and the Furong Tunnel is level throughout, which makes it one of the more accessible highlights. The campus is hilly overall, several of the historic buildings have steps at the entrance, and the Shangxianchang is tiered stone seating with no step-free route to the upper levels. Distances are substantial, so plan a short route.
Worth knowing before you go
If you cannot get a slot, the Furong Tunnel - painted end to end by students - opens onto Baicheng beach and can be reached from the seaward side.
Compare established providers
Check live tours and tickets
Search for Xiamen University (Siming campus) in Xiamen. Prices, availability, payment and confirmation are handled by the booking provider.
China Travel Select does not take payment or create the reservation. Confirm the exact name, dates, inclusions and cancellation rules on the provider’s page.
Take a closer look
Maps, videos & more
Prices and hours change. These are the places to check on the day.
