Abstract: Taking Xiamen City as a typical representative of China's eco-city construction, we addressed and summarized the challenges and successful experiences of eco-city construction during rapid urbanization, through reviewing and analyzing the historical and natural process of Xiamen's eco-city construction in the past four decades. We found that the administrative division, the expansion of built-up areas, and the limitation of natural resources played the important role in the eco-city construction process. According to the major challenges faced during the rapid urbanization, the Xiamen's eco-city construction process was divided into three stages:the material resource constraints stage (from the 1980s to the 1990s), the environmental pollution and ecological restoration stage (from 1990s to the early 21^st century), and the optimization and management of urban spatial pattern stage (from the early 21^st century to the present). Three aspects of experiences can be summarized from the Xiamen's eco-city construction process:1) attention of the government and relevant departments integrate leadership, 2) parallel development of city construction and ecological construction according to natural and environmental capacity, and 3) top-level design of multi-conformity urban development path. The paper provides valuable information for eco-city construction of rapid urbanization areas in China and other developing countries.

Key words: rapid urbanization, eco-city, Xiamen, construction experience