History

Western traders first established a presence on Kulangsu after Xiamen (Amoy) was opened as one of the five treaty ports under the 1842 Treaty of Nanking ending the First Opium War. British, American, and other merchants built warehouses and residences on the island through the second half of the nineteenth century, coexisting with a Chinese population. After China’s defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–95) and the imposition of increasingly severe treaty conditions, the island was formally designated an International Settlement by multilateral agreement in 1903. Under the Settlement regime, a Municipal Council — with foreign majority representation despite the Chinese majority population — administered public works, policing, sanitation and infrastructure. The resulting half-century of co-habitation produced the extraordinary architectural hybrid that survives today.

Japan’s annexation of the Kulangsu Settlement in 1943 (during World War II) ended the multilateral administration, and all foreign concessions were formally abrogated after 1945. Chinese sovereignty was fully restored. Through the second half of the twentieth century the island housed residential and cultural institutions. The physical fabric was largely preserved by the absence of industrial development, the island’s small size, and — crucially — the prohibition of motor vehicles. Systematic heritage conservation began in the 1990s; the UNESCO nomination was submitted by China and accepted in 2017.