CHI-NAN FU, the capital of Shan-tung, China, in 36° 40′ N., 117° 1′ E. Pop. about 100,000. It is situated in one of the earliest settled districts of the Chinese empire. The city, which lies in the valley of the present channel of the Yellow river (Hwang-Ho), and about 4 m. south of the river, is surrounded by a triple line of defence. First is the city wall, strongly built and carefully guarded, outside this a granite wall, and beyond this again a mud rampart. Three springs outside the west gate throw up streams of tepid water to a height of about 2 ft. This water, which is highly prized for its healing qualities, fills the moat and forms a fine lake in the northern quarter of the city.
Chi-nan Fu was formerly famous for its manufacture of silks and of imitation precious stones. It is now the chief commercial entrepôt of Western Shan-tung but no longer a manufacturing centre. A highway connects it with the Yellow river, and it is joined by a railway 280 m. long to Kiaochow. The city has a university for instruction on Western lines, and an efficient military school. American Presbyterians began mission work in the city in 1873; it is also the see of a Roman Catholic bishop.
CHINCHA ISLANDS, three small islands in the Pacific Ocean, about 12 m. from the coast of Peru (to which country they belong), opposite the town of Pisco, and 106 m. distant from Callao, in 13° 38′ S., 76° 28′ W. The largest of the group, known as the North Island or Isla del Norte, is only four-fifths of a mile in length, and about a third in breadth. They are of granitic formation, and rise from the sea in precipitous cliffs, worn into countless caves and hollows, which furnish convenient resting-places for the sea-fowl. Their highest points attain an elevation of 113 ft. The islands have yielded a few remains of the Chincha Indian race. They were formerly noted for vast deposits of guano, and its export was begun by the Peruvian government in 1840. The supply, however, was exhausted in 1874. In 1853-1854 the Chincha Islands were the chief object in a contest known as the Guano War between President Echenique and General Castilla; and in April 1864 they were seized by the Spanish rear-admiral Pinzon in order to bring the Peruvian government to apologize for its treatment of Spanish immigrants.
CHINCHEW, or CHINCHU, the name usually given in English charts to an ancient and famous port of China in the province of Fu-kien, of which the Chinese name is Ch‘üanchow-fu or Ts‘üanchow-fu. It stands in 24° 57′ N., 118° 35′ E. The walls have a circuit of 7 or 8 m., but embrace much vacant ground. The chief exports are tea and sugar, tobacco, china-ware, nankeens, &c. There are remains of a fine mosque, founded by the Arab traders who resorted thither. The English Presbyterian Mission has had a chapel in the city since about 1862. Beyond the northern branch of the Min (several miles from the city) there is a suburb called Loyang, approached by the most celebrated bridge in China.
Ch‘üanchow, owing to the obstruction of its harbour by sand banks, has been supplanted as a port by Amoy, and its trade is carried on through the port of Nganhai. It is still, however, a large and populous city. It was in the middle ages the great port of Western trade with China, and was known to the Arabs and to Europeans as Zaitūn or Zayton, the name under which it appears in Abulfeda’s geography and in the Mongol history of Rashīddudīn, as well as in Ibn Batuta, Marco Polo and other medieval travellers. Some argument has been alleged against the identity of Zayton with Ch‘üanchow, and in favour of its being rather Changchow (a great city 60 m. W.S.W. of Ch‘üanchow), or a port on the river of Changchow near Amoy. “Port of Zayton” may have embraced the great basin called Amoy Harbour, the chief part of which lies within the Fu or department of Ch‘üanchow; but there is hardly room for doubt that the Zayton of Marco Polo and Abulfeda was the Ch‘üanchow of the Chinese. Ibn Batuta informs us that a rich silk texture made here was called Zaitūniya; and there can be little doubt that this is the real origin of the word “Satin,” Zettani in medieval Italian, Aceytuni in Spanish.