Place:Yantai, Shantung, People's Republic of China

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Yantai, formerly known as Chefoo, is a coastal prefecture-level city on the Shandong Peninsula in northeastern Shandong province of People's Republic of China. Lying on the southern coast of the Bohai Strait, Yantai borders Qingdao on the southwest and Weihai on the east, with sea access to both the Bohai Sea (via the Laizhou Bay and the Bohai Strait) and the Yellow Sea (from both north and south sides of the Shandong Peninsula). It is the largest fishing seaport in Shandong. Its population was 6,968,202 during the 2010 census, of whom 2,227,733 lived in the built-up area made up of the 4 urban districts of Zhifu, Muping, Fushan and Laishan.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

During the Xia and Shang dynasties, the region was inhabited by indigenous people vaguely known to the Chinese as the "Eastern Barbarians" (Dongyi). Under the Zhou, they were colonized and sinicized as the state of Lai. Lai was annexed by Qi in Under the First Emperor (Shi Huangdi), the area was administered as the Qi Commandery. Under the Han, this was renamed as the Donglai Commandery. Following the Three Kingdoms Period, the area was organized by the Jin as the Donglai Kingdom or Principality, later returning to prefecture status as a jùn and then zhōu. Under the Tang and during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, it was known as Deng Prefecture and organized with the Henan Circuit. It was then organized as the Laizhou and then, under the Qing, Dengzhou Prefecture.

Up to the 19th century, however, the Zhifu area consisted of nothing but small unwalled fishing villages of little importance. Under the Ming, these were first troubled by the "Dwarf Pirates" and then by the overreacting "Sea Ban", which required coastal Chinese to give up trading and most fishing and relocate inland upon pain of death.

Following the Second Opium War, the Qing Empire was obliged to open more treaty ports by the unequal 1858 Treaty of Tianjin, including Tengchow (now Penglai). Its port being found inadequate, Zhifu—about away—was selected to act as the seat of the area's foreign commerce. The mooring was at considerable distance from shore, necessitating more time and expense in loading and unloading, but the harbor was deep and expansive and business grew rapidly. The harbor opened in May 1861, with its status as an international port affirmed on 22 August. The official decree was accompanied by the construction of the Donghai Customs House.^[1] It quickly became the residence of a circuit intendant ("taotai"), customs house, and a considerable foreign settlement located between the old native town and the harbor. Britain and sixteen other nations established consulates in the town. The town was initially expanded with well-laid streets and well-built stone houses, even for the poorer classes, a Catholic and a Protestant church were erected, and a large hotel did business with foreigners who employed the town as a summer resort.

The principal traders were the British and Americans, followed by the Germans and Thais. In the 1870s, the principal imports were woolen and cotton goods, iron, and opium and the principal exports were tofu, soybean oil, peas, coarse vermicelli, vegetables, and dried fruit from Zhifu itself, raw silk and straw braid from Laizhou, and walnuts from Qingzhou. The town also traded Chinese liquors and sundries for the edible seaweed grown in the shallows of the Russian settlements around Port Arthur (now Dalian's Lüshunkou District). In 1875, the murder of the British diplomat Augustus Margary in Tengchong, Yunnan, led to a diplomatic crisis that was resolved in Zhifu by Thomas Wade and Li Hongzhang the next year. The resultant Chefoo Convention gave British subjects extraterritoriality throughout China and exempted the foreign merchants' enclaves from the likin tax on internal commerce. Its healthy situation and good anchorage made it a favorite coaling station for foreign fleets, giving it some importance in the conflicts over Korea, Port Arthur, and Weihaiwei.

Yantai received German economic activities and investments for about 20 years. In the run-up to the First World War, its trade continued to grow but was limited by the poor roads of the area's hinterland and the necessity of using pack animals for portage. The trade items remained largely the same as before. After the Germans were defeated by Allied forces in World War I, Qingdao and Yantai were occupied by the Japanese, who turned Yantai into a summer station for their Asian fleet. They also set up a trading establishment in the town. The different foreign influences that shaped this city are explored at the Yantai Museum, which used to be a guild hall. However, the city's colourful history has not left a distinctive architectural mark, there has never been a foreign concession, and though there are a few grand 19th-century European buildings, most of the town is of much more recent origin. After 1949, the town's name was changed from Chefoo to Yantai, and it was opened to the world as an ice-free trade port in 1984.

On 12 November 1911, the eastern division of Tongmeng Hui declared itself a part of the revolutionary movement. The next day, it established the Shandong Military Government and, the day after that, renamed itself the Yantai Division of the Shandong Military Government. In 1914, Jiaodong Circuit was established with Yantai as the capital. Jiaodong Circuit was renamed Donghai Circuit in 1925. On 19 January 1938, Yantai participated as part of an anti-Japanese revolutionary committee.

After the creation of the People's Republic of China, Yantai was officially awarded city status with the outlying towns of Laiyang and Wendeng tacked on as "Special Regions" in 1950. Wendeng was merged into Laiyang six years later, and this larger Laiyang Special Region was combined with Yantai City to become Yantai Prefecture. Yantai is of strategic importance to China's defense, as it and Dalian, directly across the Bohai Sea from it, are primary coastal guard points for Beijing. In November 1983, the prefecture became a prefecture-level city.

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