Jian'ou

Jian'ou is a county-level city in Nanping in northern Fujian province, China. Under the name Jianning (Kienning), it was formerly the seat of its own prefecture and was the namesake of its province. Jian'ou is within a major bamboo and rice-growing area on Jianxi Brook, about 70 kilometres (43 mi) south from Jianyang. The Jian'ou dialect, a dialect of Northern Min, is spoken in Jian'ou. The city was established in 196 under the name Jian'an – the era name of the reigning Emperor Xian of Han. Along with Fuzhou, they were the earliest-established Chinese territories in the area and thus their province bears their conjoined names: Fu & Jian. The city was once the capital of the Fujian region and also served as the capital of the empire of Yin in AD 943. In the Song dynasty, Jian'an became the seat of Jianning Prefecture (Jianning-fu). Jian'ou was visited by Marco Polo in 1291 on his way from Hangzhou to Quanzhou. In his Travels, dictated seven years later to a scribe writing in Old French, the name Jianning-fu is romanised as Quenlinfu.