Xiapu Fishing Villages

Known as the most charming fishing village of China, Xiapu (霞浦)is located at the northeast part of Fujian Province. It is a county under the administration of the municipal region of Ningde (宁德). It has a long stretch (404km) of East China Sea coast, with a large portion of sea shore protected by mountains and rocks, making it perfect for fishers to establish since the past thousand years.

Due to the pleasant seawater temperature and plenty of sunshine, the Xiapu mudflats are rich in kelp, laver, oyster and yellow croakers. Locals living along the beach are mainly engaged in marine culture. The bamboo poles, fish nets and stone columns that are inserted in the mudflats are used to dry kelp, laver, oyster and other marine products. As the sun rises and sets, the tide rises and falls, the bamboo poles, fishing boats and fish nets form various spectacular sceneries. For this reason, Xiapu was listed on the “10 Top Photographers Paradises” by the Digital Photographers, a famous Chinese Photography Club. These years, Xiapu has attracted many tourists and photographers from home and abroad.

In Xiapu, the hills serve as a good spot for photographers to compose many of the stunning pictures. Together with the scenery, colourful low lying sand, history, culture, fisher farms and fishermen working scene, it is not strange why there are so many photographers travel to here with so many unusual picture like photos were taken. According to the photographers, there are a lot of typical fishing villages in Xiapu:

-The beach in Xiaohao is one of the most beautiful (come during sunset and you can see a lot of fisherman boats scatter around the water with good lighting).

-Shatangli low lying beach has stunning sunrise.

-In Beiqi you can see the big crowd of fishermen working.

-After Shatan is Shajiang, the water here is isolated and calm and simply too many subject for photography.

-Sansha East has good sunset.

-Weijiang is worth the trip during the season of seaweed harvesting.

-During morning should take the picture of thousand rows of fishing bamboo planted on low lying beach with Mantou Shan (Mt. Mantou)

-Beidou has beach and Yanjiaxi has pituresque old banyan tree forest.

-There are more like Qidu and Erdu.

-Xia’ao village a famous place for Mollusks farm.

-Baishen village and Daao village are famous for big crew of fishermen return (around 3000 of them) from catching Mollusks.

-Huangqi village is a photographer’s secret famous for large scale of floating fishing village.

-Sha’ao Bay at Qida village is popular for abalone farm with many colourful floating houses.

-Haishang Yu Cun (fishing village on the sea), this beautiful village is located on the Dong’an Island and known as the “Venice on the sea”. The village has hundreds of floating wooden houses and numerous fish farms.