Dalian ( ) is a major prefecture-level, sub-provincial port city in Liaoning province, People's Republic of China, and is Liaoning's second largest city (after the provincial capital Shenyang) and the third-most populous city of Northeast China (after Shenyang and Harbin). Located on the southern tip of the Liaodong peninsula, it is the southernmost city in both Liaoning and the entire Northeast. Dalian borders the prefectural cities of Yingkou and Anshan to the north and Dandong to the northeast, and also shares maritime boundaries with Qinhuangdao and Huludao across the Liaodong Bay to the west and northwest, Yantai and Weihai on the Shandong peninsula across the Bohai Strait to the south, and North Korea across the Korea Bay to the east.
As of the 2020 census, its total population was 7,450,785 inhabitants of whom 5,106,719 lived in the built-up (or metro) area made of 6 out of 7 urban districts, Pulandian District not being conurbated yet.
Today, Dalian is a financial, shipping, and logistics center for East Asia. The city has a significant history of use by foreign powers for its ports. Dalian was previously known as "Dalniy" (; ), "Dairen" (), and "Lüda" or "Luta" (). The city used to be better known as "Port Arthur" and "Ryojun" () from the original Port Arthur, now the city's Lüshunkou district.
In 2016, Dalian ranked 48th in the Global Financial Centres Index. In 2012, Dalian ranked 82nd in the Global City Competitiveness Index. In 2006, Dalian was named China's most livable city by China Daily. It is now a Beta-level City under the Globalization and World Cities Research Network classification. The large amount of port traffic makes Dalian a Large-Port Metropolis.
Dalian is one of the top 40 science cities in the world by scientific research as tracked by the Nature Index, ranking 37th globally in 2023. The city is home to several major universities, notably Dalian University of Technology and Dalian Maritime University, members of China's prestigious universities in the Project 211, and the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Etymology Modern Dalian originated from Qingniwa () or Qingniwaqiao (), a small Chinese fishing village. The Russian Empire built a commercial town after coercing a lease of the area from the Qing dynasty in 1898 and called it Dalny ( — "a remote one" or "far-away", in reference to the town's location, rendered in Chinese as ) from 1898 to 1905. After the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, Japan occupied the area as the Kwantung Leased Territory and renamed the city , which is the on'yomi (Sino-Japanese reading) of the Chinese name for Dalian Bay () — a name in use since at least 1879. English-language sources called the city Dairen in this period (1905–1945), from Japanese.
In 1950, Dalian, back in Chinese control, merged with the nearby town called Lüshun (; formerly Ryojun and before that, Port Arthur) to form the city of Lüda (), a name (formed from the first syllable of each constituent's name: LÜshun + DAlian) which was usually rendered as Luta in English during that era. In 1981, the Chinese State Council again renamed the city from Lüda back to Dalian (), effective 5 March 1981.
History Ancient In the Qin and Han empires (221 BC – AD 220), the Chinese empire annexed the Dalian Peninsula from the Korean state. During the Sixteen Kingdoms era (3rd through 5th centuries), the Korean state of Goguryeo controlled this region. In the early Tang dynasty (618–907), the Dalian region formed part of Andong Prefecture in Jili state; during the Liao dynasty (916–1125), it was a part of Dong Jing Tong Liaoyang county. Dalian was named Sanshan in the period of Wei Jin (220–420), San Shanpu in the Tang dynasty (618–907), Sanshan Seaport in the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), and Qingniwakou during the early modern era.
Qing dynasty In the 1880s, Jinzhou, north of downtown Dalian, now Jinzhou District, was a walled town and a center for political intrigue and economic activity. The Qing government built bridges and heavily fortified the peninsula. Mining camps on the northern coast of Dalian Bay became the small town of Qingniwa () or Qingniwaqiao (), near what became the downtown core of modern-day Dalian.
British, Russian, and Japanese occupations
The British briefly occupied Qingniwa during the Second Opium War in 1858,They also renamed the bay for Queen Victoria. Kuramoto p. 19. but returned it to Chinese (Qing) control in 1860. Port Arthur at the tip of the Liaodong Peninsula took its English name from Royal Navy Lieutenant William Arthur, though the area's Chinese name had always been Lüshun. Although China heavily fortified the area, which it allowed trade with foreigners, in the First Sino-Japanese War Japan swiftly overcame those defenses and occupied Dalian. In April 1895, China conceded defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War, ceding Liaodong Peninsula, Taiwan, and Penghu, and making many other concessions in the Treaty of Shimonoseki (17 April 1895).
In the Triple Intervention of 23 April 1895, Russia, France, and Germany forced Japan to return the Liaodong Peninsula to China, despite the treaty's terms; instead, the Russian Tsarist regime coerced a lease of the peninsula from China in 1898. Russia had a particular interest in the region of the peninsula as one of the few areas in the region that had the potential to develop ice-free ports.Hess, Christian A. (2006). "From colonial jewel to socialist metropolis: Dalian, 1895–1955." PhD dissertation (University of California, San Diego), p. 17. The Russians built a modern commercial port city, which they wanted to become the Paris of the Far East, and called it Dal'niy ().Kuramoto p. 20. Linked by 1902 with the Trans-Siberian Railway via the branch line Chinese Eastern Railway through Harbin, Dal'niy became Russia's primary port-city in Asia while also serving Western traders. Russia signed the Pavlov Agreement (1898) with China, which granted Russia a 25-year lease on Dalian and Lüshun and exclusive right to build a branch of the Chinese Eastern Railway—what would become from 1905 the Japanese-operated South Manchurian Railway.Hess, p. 21. Russia spent more than 10 million golden rubles (equivalent to 11.5 billion of today's rubles) building the new ice-free port city.March, G. Patrick. Eastern Destiny: Russia in Asia and the North Pacific (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 1996)
Russia heavily fortified both Dalniy (Qingniwaqiao of Zhongshan District) and the Port Arthur naval base (Lüshunkou) before and after the Boxer Rebellion of 1899–1901. During the insurrection, missionaries, converts and Russians were killed and other Europeans were killed by rebels in the peninsula, although the massive massacres of Europeans and Christians including Metrophanes, Chi Sung occurred at Harbin. Western expeditionary forces suppressed the Boxers across the Yellow Sea in Shandong Peninsula.
During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, the Liaodong Peninsula became a major battleground. Major-General Baron Anatoly Stoessel defended a besieged Port Arthur for five months (August 1904 to January 1905), but the Japanese army, using long-distance fire, sank several Russian ships at the Port Arthur naval base in early December 1904. Admiral Eugene Alexeyeff was blamed for splitting precious resources shipped across the single-tracked Trans-Siberian Railway and Manchurian Railway between Dalniy and Port Arthur. After the Imperial Japanese Navy crippled the remaining Russian battleship Sevastopol in three weeks of constant attacks, and explosives detonated in tunnels destroyed Port Arthur's remaining defenses in the final days of 1904, Russia negotiated a ceasefire and surrendered Port Arthur in January 1905.
The Treaty of Portsmouth (signed 5 September 1905) ceded Port Arthur to Japan, which set up the Kwantung Leased Territory or (), on roughly the southern half (Jinzhou District and south) of present-day Dalian. The Japanese invested heavily in the region, which became the main trading port between Manchuria and Japan. Japan leased the area from Manchukuo after establishing that puppet state in 1932. In 1937, as the Second World War began, Japan enlarged and modernized the trade zone into two cities: the northern Dairen (Dalian) and the southern Ryojun (Lüshun or Port Arthur).
Post-World War II
With the unconditional surrender of Japan in August–September 1945, Dairen passed to the Soviets, whose Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation had liberated the city on 22 August 1945. Unlike many cities in the northeast, the city never reverted to de jure Nationalist authority. The Soviets and Chinese Communists cooperated to develop the city, relatively undamaged during the war, especially its industrial infrastructure and the port. The Soviet government rented the port, and in 1945 the first Chinese Communist mayor of the new Lüda Administrative Office () was appointed. The city was a place of relative calm once the Chinese Civil War resumed.
In 1950, the USSR returned the city to Chinese administration without any compensation. Dalian and Lüshun (former Port Arthur) merged as Lüda on 1 December 1950. From 12 March 1953 to 1 August 1954, it was a direct-controlled municipality and not part of Liaoning. Soviet troops left the city in 1955. After the Soviets left, the PRC made Lüda a major shipbuilding center.
In 1981 the city was renamed Dalian, with Lüshunkou becoming a constituent district. In 1984 the Chinese Government designated the city a Special Economic Zone. At the time, Dalian was China's largest foreign-trade port."China widens doors for foreign capital" . Ottawa Citizen (3 October 1984)
1990 to present The city was upgraded from a prefecture-level city to a sub-provincial city in May 1994, with no change in its administrative subdivisions. In the 1990s, the city benefited from the attention of Bo Xilai (Party secretary of Dalian). Bo served both as the mayor of the city and as one of the major leaders in the province; among other things, he banned motorcycles and planted large, lush parks in the city's many traffic circles. He also preserved much of Dalian's Russian Tsarist regime-era buildings. He also worked as the former Minister of Commerce of China.
Since 2007 Dalian has hosted the Annual Meeting of the New Champions ("Summer Davos"), organized by the World Economic Forum, in alternating years with Tianjin. The venue for the forum is the Dalian International Conference Center in Donggang CBD. In 2008 about 1,000 people protested and blocked traffic as a response to the 2008 Tibetan anti-Chinese protests, and forced the temporary closure of the local Carrefour store.
In 2010, one of the worst recorded oil spills in China's history occurred in Dalian. The Dalian PX protest occurred on 14 August 2011. In June 2014, China's tenth state-level new area, the Dalian Jinpu New Area, was officially established. On 5 August 2016, the Dalian huabiao incident occurred. A huabiao, named the "" (九龙华表), in the center of Xinghai Square was demolished, which was believed to be out of political reasons related to the downfall of Chinese politician Bo Xilai, who oversaw the construction of Xinghai Square and the central huabiao during his tenure as the mayor of Dalian. The site of the huabiao was later replaced with a musical fountain, the largest one in Northern China.
Geography
One of the most heavily developed industrial areas of China, the Dalian municipal area today consists of Dalian proper and the smaller Lüshunkou (formerly Lüshun city, known in Western and Russian historic references as Port Arthur), farther along the Liaodong Peninsula. Historical references note that the Russian-designed city of Dalniy (Alt. Dalney), on the south side of Dalian Bay, was from Port Arthur/Lüshun (known today as Lüshunkou or literally, Lüshun Port).