[6] As of 31 December 2018, the total population was estimated at 7,740,000 whom 4,665,000 lived in the built-up (or metro) area made of five urban districts plus Minhou County.

The Yuanhe Maps and Records of Prefectures and Counties, a Chinese geographical treatise published in the 9th century, says that Fuzhou's name came from Mount Futo a mountain northwest of the city.

In older English publications, the name is variously romanized as Foochow, Foo-Chow,[11] Fuchow, Fūtsu, Fuh-Chow, Hock Chew, and Hokchew.

[13] The First Emperor of Qin unified ancient China in 221 BC and desired to bring the southern and southeast regions under Chinese rule.

[14] Many Minyue citizens were forcibly relocated into the Jianghuai area, and the Yue ethnic group was mostly assimilated into the Chinese, causing a sharp decline in Ye's inhabitants.

During the Three Kingdoms period, southeast China was nominally under the control of Eastern Wu, and the Fuzhou area had a shipyard for the coastal and Yangtze River fleets.

Among them were Zhu Xi, the most celebrated Chinese philosopher after Confucius, and Xin Qiji, the greatest composer of the ci form of poetry.

The record of his experiences in the Ming Empire, logged by the Jesuits at Goa in 1561, was the first non-clerical account of China to reach the West since Marco Polo.

In 1839, Lin Zexu, who himself was a Fuzhou native, was appointed by the Daoguang Emperor to enforce the imperial ban on the opium trade in Canton.

Between May 31 and June 1, Chinese gunboats Fu-Ning, Chen-Ning and Suming defending the blockade line in the estuary of the Min River were successively bombed and sunk.

[25] The extent of Japanese command and control of the city of Fuzhou itself as opposed to the port at Mawei and the Min River Estuary is uncertain.

Western visitors to Fuzhou in the period 1941–1944 include the Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett in 1942[26] and the British scientist Joseph Needham in May 1944.

In The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom, author Simon Winchester relates the visit of Dr Needham in 1944.

Different groups of Red Guards fought with each other using guns on the streets of the city, and even attacking the People's Liberation Army.

[37] Fuzhou is located in the northeast coast of Fujian province,[38] connects jointly northwards with Ningde and Nanping, southwards with Quanzhou and Putian, westwards with Sanming respectively.

Some notable street food dishes include Fuzhou fish balls (魚丸), meat-pastry dumplings (扁肉燕), oyster cake (海蛎饼), rice scroll soup (鼎邊糊), guong bian (光餅; a kind of mildly savory pastry), Buddha Jumps over the Wall (佛跳墙), and pork floss (肉鬆).

Many of these street food dishes have a long history and their own local legend; an example would be the oyster cake, according Fuzhou local folklore, in the early Qing dynasty, there was a young man who inherited his father's dim sum business, despite all his hard works, he only managed to earn enough money to feed himself, not enough to raise and feed a family of his own.

According to the legend, after the young man made a fortune out of his invention and his oyster cake was imitated by many others, which was passed down till this day.

Bodiless lacquerware (脫胎漆器), paper umbrellas and horn combs (角梳) are the "Three Treasures" of Fuzhou traditional arts.

In addition, bodiless lacquerware, together with cork pictures (軟木畫) and Shoushan stone sculptures (壽山石雕) are called "Three Superexcellences" of Fuzhou.

Fuzhou Evening News (福州晚报), Strait Metropolitan Post and Southeast Express (东南快报) are the three most primary newspapers in the city.

Fuzhou South Railway Station, located in Cangshan district, is a key landmark of the New City development scheme, begun in 2007 and completed in 2010.

The academy, which offered courses in English, French, engineering, and navigation, produced a generation of Western-trained officers, including the famous scholar-reformer Yan Fu (1854–1921).

The yard was established as part of a program to strengthen China in the wake of the country's disastrous defeat in the Second Opium War (1856–1860).

Most talented students nonetheless continued to pursue a traditional Confucian education, and by the mid-1870s the government began to lose interest in the shipyard, which had trouble securing funds and declined in importance.

The city is a center for commercial banking, designer brands and timber-working, engineering, papermaking, printing, and textile industries.

Its exports of timber, food products, and paper move through the harbor at Guantou located about 50 kilometres (31 mi) downstream.

[55] The Fuzhou Free Trade Zone was established in 1992 by the State Council, with a planning area of 1.8 square kilometres (0.69 sq mi).

[59] Sanfang Qixiang (三坊七巷) "Three Lanes and Seven Alleys" is a cluster of ancient residential buildings dating from the late Jin dynasty now features a pedestrian zone with shops along the street.

5The claimed province of Taiwan no longer have any internal division announced by Ministry of Civil Affairs of PRC, due to lack of actual jurisdiction.