An aerial view of Changkou village in Sanming, a city that has rich forestry resources. [Photo/China Daily]

Sanming is a city in central Fujian province. At the end of 2025, the registered population of Sanming stood at 2.8 million.

The city is famous for its lush mountains, lucid waters, and prehistoric relics. With its special urban features and its environmental protection efforts, Sanming has won various titles, such as "National Civilized City", and is recognized as a national demonstration zone for eco-environmental progress.

Sanming is a typical old revolutionary base area with an abundance of mountains and forestry resources. The city's forest coverage rate reached 77.12 percent. There are 79 different types of minerals such as limestone, tungsten, and fluorite in the region.

To pass on the revolutionary traditions of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Sanming has deeply explored its red tourism resources and taken steps to develop 12 national-level top tourist attractions and another 10 based on the Long March, the famous two-year tactical retreat carried out by the CPC's Red Army, which started in 1934. Sanming was home to seven Soviet counties in the past, and its Ninghua county was one of the four starting points of the Long March.

In 2020, Sanming was designated by the State Forestry Administration as a pilot region in the country to conduct the comprehensive reform of the forest resources, providing an example for other old revolutionary base areas to follow. In March 2022, Sanming welcomed another major policy from the central government, which approved a document to develop high-quality demonstration zones in the nation's old revolutionary bases in the western part of Fujian and the southern part of Jiangxi.

A former industrial center known for producing iron, coke, carbides, chemical fertilizers, cement, and plastic products, Sanming has been transformed into a green city. The city's Changkou village has become a good example of a settlement that combines rural vitalization with national conservation efforts.

The city is also the hometown of Shaxian delicacies, a style of cuisine from Shaxian district in Sanming. The Shaxian delicacies restaurant chain presents customers with traditional snacks such as peanut butter noodles and pork wontons and has more locations than fast food giant McDonald's. There are now more than 88,000 restaurants serving Shaxian delicacies nationwide.

In 2025, Sanming's gross regional product (GRP) totaled 251.2 billion yuan ($36.96 billion). The added value of the primary and tertiary industries reached 37.71 billion yuan and 130.38 billion yuan, respectively, up 3.6 percent and 3.3 percent from the previous year. The added value of the secondary industry stood at 83.12 billion yuan, down 15.7 percent year-on-year.