History & Culture

Wenzhou, located in East China's Zhejiang province, enjoys a profound and brilliant cultural background with a history dating back to the Kingdom of Dong'ou more than 2,200 years ago. The unique Wenzhou culture, also called Ouyue culture, was formed after the convergence of various cultures from the Central Plain, sea, mountains, and other civilizations.

The abundance of cultural heritage is reflected in the fact that Wenzhou is the birthplace of Chinese landscape poems and is known as the hometown of Nanxi (Southern Opera), the earliest form of Chinese opera.

Regarded as the cradle of Chinese mathematicians in China, the city has been home to over 200 mathematicians and mathematic professors in the past 100 years, among whom Su Buqing, Gu Chaohao, Jiang Lifu and others have enjoyed great fame both at home and abroad. Furthermore, Wenzhou is where China's mercantile economics originated.

In recent years, Wenzhou has strengthened its cultural development by encouraging reading. It led the country in the building of the City's Study – a self-service 24-hour public library led by the government and co-organized by social forces that relies on central libraries and uses automated equipment to provide integrated services – and the demonstration zone it established to implement the national public cultural service system has been approved.