Kinmen

Kinmen or Quemoy (/kɪˈmɔɪ/; see also "Names" section below), officially Kinmen County (Chinese: 金門縣; pinyin: Jīnmén Xiàn), is an island group governed by Taiwan which located just off the southeastern coast of mainland China, including Great Kinmen, Lesser Kinmen, Wuqiu and several surrounding islets. It is one of two counties under the streamlined Fujian Province of the Republic of China. Only about 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) west to the Chinese city of Xiamen, its strategic position has reflected the significant change of Cross-Strait relations from the battlefront line to the main trading point between two sides. Due to the ongoing issue of the political status of Taiwan, The People's Republic of China (PRC) has continuously claimed Kinmen as part of its own Fujian Province's Quanzhou prefecture-level city.

Names

Kinmen was first named Jīnmén (金門; lit, "golden gate") in Chinese 1387 when the Hongwu Emperor of China's Ming dynasty appointed a military officer to administer the island and protect it from wokou (pirate) attacks. The name is pronounced Jīnmén in the official Mandarin Chinese and Kim-mûi in the native Zhangzhou dialect of Hokkien Minnan. The various names used in English for the islands derive from the Chinese counterparts.