The old records say the following: "The building of a salt field and the levying of salt taxes on Kinmen originated in 1297 during the Yuan Dynasty". The 700-year old salt field has ten pans and is located at Xiyuan. The salt industry was one of Kinmen's important early industries and has undergone many changes.The method of production has also changed from cooking to sun-drying. During the early Republic there were still three salt fields in operation on Kinmen. In the spring of 1933 the Fujian Salt Bureau ordered the leveling of the remaining three. It was not until the Japanese military occupied Kinmen in 1938 and rebuilt the Xiyuan Salt Field that salt production was restarted.After the War of Resistance was finally won, the Battleground Administration Commission restarted salt production on Kinmen again until it was finally shut down on July 1, 1995, for being not cost-effective. This finally lowered the curtains on Kinmen's seven centuries of salt production. The Xiyuan Salt Field today embodies a part of Kinmen's traditional industry culture.