China Qingdao

1897, Germany took the area by force with the excuse of "Juye Jiao Case", and made the Qing government sign the "Jiao'ao Concession Treaty" on March 6, 1898. From then on, Jiao'ao was humiliated to be a colony and Shandong Province was put within the sphere of influence of Germany as well. Germany set up the Residence of Governor to force iron-hand colonial ruling upon the locals and attached great importance to the building of the military facilities and the infrastructures such as ports and railways in hope of expanding its invasion of china with Jiao'ao as the bridge head of its political ruling, economic aggression and culture enslavement. In 1914, the Japanese troops attacked Qingdao and in 1922 China took back this area: in 1937 Japan invaded Qingdao for the second time, but on June 2, 1949 Qingdao was liberated at last. Nowadays Qingdao is one of the important opening-up coastal cities in China and is a well-known historical and cultural city with trade, light industry, tourism and oceanography research as its main industries.

Geography

Qingdao is located in the south of Shandong Peninsula, between 119o30 and 121o00east longitude, 35o35to 37o09north latitude, with the Yellow Sea to its east and south, Yantai to its northeast, Weifang to its west, and Rizhao on its southwest. The total area of the city is 10,654 square kilometers, with the downtown area (consisting of 7 districts, namely City South, City North, Sifang, Licang, Laoshan, Chengyang, and Huangdao) covering 1,102 square kilometers, and the area of the 5 cities of Jiaozhou, Jimo, Pingdu, Jiaonan, and Laixi taking up 9,552 square kilometers.

Natural Ecological Environment

Qingdao is a coastal and hilly city, high in the east and low in the west, bulging in the north and south, with lower land in the middle. The mountainous area accounts for 15.5% of the total area of the city, the hilly area 25.1%, the plain 37.8%, and the lower land 21.7%. There are mainly three mountain ranges in the city: Mount Laoshan in the southeast, the Daze Mountain in the north, and the Jiaonan Mountains in the south.
In Qingdao, there are 32 rivers with river reaches of over 100 square kilometers, among which 5 have the river reaches exceeding 500 square kilometers. Dagu River is the largest one and the main source of the underground and runoff water of the city.
The total coastline of Qingdao is 730.64 kilometers, with 49 bays, 52 islands, 54 reefs and 14 beaches. The coastal area of Qingdao, zigzagging with abundant bays and beaches, and high quality seawater, is an ideal habitation place for many kinds of marine plants and animals of high economic value.
The wind resources of Qingdao are very rich with the effective wind resource utilization of 6,485 hours per year. Qingdao is also rich in light resources, with the radiation volume of sunlight reaching 120 kilowatt/square centimeters per year. The annual average sunshine time is up to 2,550.7 hours, with the sunshine percentage of 58%.

Economy

The economy of Qingdao has been developing in a sustained, fast and healthy way. Its GDP reached 79.7 billion RMB in 1997, representing an increase of 20.97 times over the 3.8 billion in 1978. in the same period, the local financial revenue increased by 3.65 times, from 1.295 to 4.276 billion RMB. Grain output amounted to 3.39 million tons in the peak year of 1996, up from 1.901 million tons; the inflation rate is much lower than the economic growth rate.
Qingdao has speeded up the industrialization of its agriculture. As a result the agricultural industrial structure has been improved. By 1997, the percentage of animal husbandry and fishery in agriculture has come up to 55.2%. The whole economy operates in a very sound order. The total industrial output value increased from 5.66 billion RMB in 1978 to 173.04 billion RMB in 1997. The third industry is developing vigorously with its percentage in GDP reaching 37.4% in 1997. The total volume of consumer goods retail sales went up from 957 million RMB in 1978 to 21.6 billion RMB in 1997, with an increase of 22.57 times.
Qingdao became one of the 14 open coastal cities in 1984, which provided an opportunity with historical significance for further opening to the outside world. By the end of 1997, the utilization of foreign investment in Qingdao had been accumulated to an amount of 5.01 billion US dollars. In 1998, the foreign exchange income from exports reached 3.39 billion US dollars.

Culture

Qingdao is designated as an important historical and cultural city by the State Council. Many former residences of famous m odem scholars such as Kang Youwei, Laoshe, Wen Yiduo, Wang Tongzhao are located here. Steles through ages have been preserved well. There has been a long tradition of music and paintings. Meanwhile, it is also a center of science, technology and art. Famous for its study of oceanology, Qingdao has a galaxy of 70 percent of China's oceanologists. The well-known Ocean University and many other universities are located in Qingdao, which provide opportunities not only for study and research on language and literature, oceanology, Chinese history, traditional medicine and arts, but also for academic exchanges with famous scholars.
The Ocean University of Qingdao was initially founded in 1924. in 1988, it was renamed the Ocean University of Qingdao. The main campus of the university is located right beside the beautiful Xiaoyu Hill and Huiquan Bay. The new campus was built in the Hi-tech Industrial Park.
Founded in 1950, the Oceanology Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences is the largest multidisciplinary comprehensive research institution on oceanology in China.