Many city planners would say that the best way to know the layout of a city is to see it from the sky.Seen from the sky, Xiamen is circled entirely by water, newly built buildings standing in order like toy bricks. With new architecture, a well arranged layout and adjacent waters, Xiamen represents three distinct characteristics of China's newly up and coming cities.
Xiamen is also well known for its six natural bathing beaches. The Xiamen International Marathon Contest, featuring an economic marathon, festive marathon, communicative marathon, green marathon and tour marathon, is designed as the city's name card to gain more international fame, and it works. This contest has developed into a platform for the communications between Xiamen and its brother cities as well as a media for cross-strait (Taiwan Strait) communications.