The city of Xiamen, Fujian Province, is situated on the coast about 50 kilometers, measured from city center to city center, below the city of Quanzhou. Since China's coast here lies on a southwest-northeasterly axis, with Taiwan, which also lies on the same directional axis, situated some 150 kilometers off the mainland coast, this means that the center of Xiamen lies about 50 kilometers southwest of the center of Quanzhou. To place the city of Xiamen in relation to Taiwan, the nearby city of Quanzhou lies on a parallel, or latitude, that intersects the island of Taiwan roughly at its north-south center. Like many medium-sized cities in China, Xiamen consists not only of the city proper, but of a good portion of the surrounding "upland", even though Xiamen is not officially a prefecture-level city (albeit, as a SEZ, or Special Economic Zone, Xiamen has provincial level authority in economic matters).

Thus Xiamen includes Xiamen Island itself, on which the districts of Huli and Siming are located (Si-ming, or "Remembering Ming", is a reference to the Ming (CE 1368-1644) Dynasty, Siming being an older name for the present-day city of Xiamen). The piece of land located due west of Xiamen Island, and on which the city of Haicang is situated, is also a part of Xiamen, as are Jimei and its environs to the northwest, Tong'an and its environs to the north and Xiang'an and its environs to the east. In all, including the expanses of ocean surrounding Xiamen Island itself, Xiamen spans an administrative area of some 1500 square kilometers, a rather sizeable area, all things considered. Xiamen Island is connected to the mainland via a series of bridges to the west and to the north of the island.

Xiamen also won the highly prestigious LivCom Award in 2002 as the world's most environmentally-friendly city (the LivCom Award Committee functions under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Programme). In 2004, the city of Xiamen was among four winners (individuals, organizations and governments) of the UN-Habitat Scroll of Honor award (the other three 2004 UN-Habitat Scroll of Honor winners were: President Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique; the Centre for Development Communication (CDC – not to be confused with the Center for Disease Control in the US!), CDC being a self-help initiative in the Indian city of Jaipur aimed at collecting garbage and thus providing jobs to the poorest of the poor; and The Big Issue, a current affairs magazine that is published in 55 variants in 28 countries and which, as the title suggests ("The Big Picture" might be an acceptable alternative title), highlights many pressing social and political issues, local as well as international, and which is sold entirely by homeless street vendors who are thus secured an income of sorts, however modest.