How to visit Xiamen University

Why people queue for a university

The campus was founded in 1921 by Tan Kah Kee, a rubber and shipping magnate from nearby Jimei who made his money in Singapore and spent most of it on schools at home. It was the first university in modern China established by an overseas Chinese.

He also had firm ideas about buildings. The old core of the campus is a row of granite halls with European arcades and colonnades below and sweeping Fujian roofs of glazed tile above. Locals nicknamed the combination “a Western suit with a bamboo hat”, and it is now known as the Jiageng style, after the Mandarin form of his name. Set against hills on one side and the sea on the other, it photographs extremely well. That is the whole problem.

How the lottery works

A new system started on 20 January 2026. The details below come from the university's notices as relayed by local media and from visitors' accounts through to October 2026. The mechanics have already been adjusted more than once, so check the account itself before relying on any time.

1. Find the right account. In WeChat, follow 厦门大学访客预约系统 and open the mini-program 参观厦大. Accounts with similar names are not official.
2. Register. Slots for a given day open three days earlier, at midnight. You choose a date and one or more time windows.
3. Wait for the draw. Registration for the next day closes in mid-afternoon, around 15:00, and results arrive roughly an hour later. Visitors say one registration is carried into the draws for up to three consecutive days if you miss the first.
4. If you win, you may cancel on the same day. After midnight you are committed, and repeated no-shows are barred.

Other rules worth knowing: one adult can add up to six companions, of whom at most three may be children. Children under eight need no place of their own but must come with a guardian who has one. A successful visit locks you out of the system for 180 days, according to recent visitors. The campus closes to the public during exams and major events.

Foreign passports

The rules do provide for you. Holders of passports and Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan travel permits cannot use the automatic ID gates, and are told to bring the original document to the service desk at the Visitor Center, where staff check it by hand.

The open question is the step before that. The registration runs inside WeChat and was built for mainland ID numbers. We have not found a single first-hand account of a foreign visitor completing it alone, nor an official statement that it cannot be done. Until we do, our advice is to have a Chinese speaker register on your behalf with your passport details, and to treat a place as a bonus.

On the day

Go to the South Gate of the Siming campus, where the Visitor Center is. Navigation apps list it as 厦门大学思明校区(南门). During the 2026 National Day holiday, people coming from Nanputuo Temple were funnelled through an underpass from the West Gate and queued for a long time, while the line at the South Gate entrance was short. Go straight to the South Gate.

The lead booker has to be present with their own document. Without them, the companions are turned away.

What to see inside

Ninety minutes is enough. The library, teaching buildings, dormitories and canteens are closed to visitors, so this is a walk, not a tour of interiors.

• The Qunxian halls. The original 1920s row facing the sports field: five granite buildings, the centre one crowned with a Chinese palace roof.
• Furong Lake. The pond at the middle of the campus, ringed by red-brick dormitories named Furong, or Hibiscus.
• Furong Tunnel. A pedestrian tunnel about a kilometre long whose walls students have covered in murals since it opened in the 2000s. Under current rules you may walk through but not stop for photo sessions.
• Shangxian Field. A crescent-shaped stadium stepped into the hillside, with the Jiannan Auditorium above it and the sea beyond.

From Shangxian Field it is a short walk out to Baicheng beach and the start of the seafront boardwalk.

If you do not get in

This is the common case, so here is what we would do with the time.

See the same architecture in Jimei. Tan Kah Kee built his first schools in his home village before he built the university, and the Jimei School Village is the Jiageng style at full strength: towers, arcades and tiled roofs around a lake, open to walk through with no reservation. It is on Metro Line 1. Our Jimei guide has the route.

Stay in the neighbourhood. Nanputuo Temple shares a wall with the campus. From the upper terraces and from Wulao Peak you look straight down on the university's roofs. Shapowei harbour and the boardwalk along Huandao Road are minutes away.

Do not pay anyone at the gate. Touts near the entrances offer to walk visitors in. The reservation is free and tied to identity documents.

Is it worth the effort?

If the draw goes your way, yes: it is a lovely hour, and combined with the temple it makes one of the best mornings in Xiamen. But we would not rearrange a short trip for it. The city has the same sea, the same hills and, in Jimei, the same buildings without the queue.

Quick answers

Keep planning

• Nanputuo Temple
• Jimei School Village
• Huandao Road and Zengcuo'an
• Things to do in Xiamen
• 2-day Xiamen itinerary
• Getting around Xiamen