Wenzhou (simplified Chinese: 温州; traditional Chinese: 溫州; pinyin: Wēnzhōu; formerly Yongjia, Yung-chia) is a prefecture-level city in southeastern Zhejiang province, the People's Republic of China.

It borders Lishui to the west, Taizhou to the north, and looks out to the East China Sea on its eastern coast.

Wenzhou has once been a famous town of the Eastern Ou ( the eastern part of the Oujiang River valley ) with a brilliant culture. In 192 BC it was the capital of the Kingdom of the Eastern Ou, and in AD 323 it became Yongjia Prefecture. As legend has it，while the city was being built, a white deer circled it with a flower in its mouth, and it has thus been called the City of White Deer as well. In AD 675, it began to be named Wenzhou, its name to this day. Historically, Wenzhou has been a city renowned for its handicrafts and celadon ware, with papermaking, shipbuilding, silk, embroideries, lacquerware, shoes and leather products being fairly eminent. During the period of the Southern Song Dynasty(1127-1279), it opened up as a foreign trade port, enjoying a reputation as a prosperous coastal city comparable to Hangzhou. Wenzhou is the hometown of Nanxi Opera or the Southern Opera. The Tale of the Pipa by Gao Ming, a famous Wenzhou playwright in the mid - fourteenth century, has been translated into a number of foreign languages and achieved worldwide renown. Wenzhou has given birth to many outstanding figures and great scholars. Among the most famous were the philosophers of the Yongjia School as represented by Ye Shi, and the poets of the River and Lake School as represented by Yongjia ' s four distinguished poets during the Southern Song Dynasty, as well as Sun Yirang, Xia Nai, Xia Chengtao, Su Buqing and others of the modern era. They are influential in the Chinese intellectual, literary and scientific history.

Wenzhou 温州

 — Prefecture-level city  —

Wenzhou City (yellow) in Zhejiang

Wenzhou Location in China

Coordinates: 28°00′N 120°42′E