Wenzhou

Coastal Zhejiang city famous as the engine of the Wenzhou model of private entrepreneurship. The Wenzhou diaspora is among the largest Chinese commercial diasporas globally.

Wenzhou's identity is commercial — the city pioneered private-business models in the 1980s when most of China was still state-owned, and the Wenzhou diaspora that emerged from the 1990s onward populates Chinese trading communities across Italy, France, Spain and southeast Asia. The local dialect (Wenzhouhua) is mutually unintelligible with Mandarin and even with neighbouring Wu-dialect speakers, and Wenzhou business networks operate substantially in dialect rather than Mandarin.

For visitors the appeal is more practical than touristic — Wenzhou's Yandang Mountain (UNESCO Tentative) and the Nanji Islands marine reserve are the regional attractions, and the Jiangxinyu (Mid-River Island) Pagoda Twins sit in the river bisecting the city.