Qingdao City

I． Facts about Qingdao
Qingdao （E119°30′~121°00′ N35°35′~37°09′）is located in the south of Shandong Peninsula with Yellow Sea to the east and south, Yantai City to the northeast, Weifang City to the west, and Rizhao City to the Southwest. Qingdao covers an area of 10,654 km2, 1,102 km2 of which are the urban areas (including the districts of Shinan, Shibei, Sifang, Licang, Laoshan, Chengyang, and Huangdao) and the other 5 cities under its jurisdiction (Jiaozhou, Jimo, Pingdu, Jiaonan, and Laixi) cover an area of 9552 km2.

Qingdao was once called Jiaoao. In 1891 (17th year of Guangxu) Qing Dynasty decided to set defense in Jiaoao, and the city was thus established. In 1919, dispute on Qingdao’s dominion was the trigger for the famous May 4th Movement. In April 1929, the KMT government in Nanjing took over the Jiaoao Port, and set up the Qingdao Special Administrative City. In 1930, the city was given its current name, Qingdao. On June 2nd 1949, Qingdao was liberated, and was put to the administration of Shandong Province. In 1981, Qingdao was listed as one of the 15 cities of economic center; in April 1984, it was listed as one of the 14 costal cities of further opening up; on October 15, 1986, the city was approved by the State Council to be separately listed in national plans, and was granted provincial level authority on economy administration; in February 1994, Qingdao was listed as on the 15 sub-provincial level cities.

By the end of 2002, Qingdao has a population of 7,156,500, out of which 2,417,400 are living in urban area. The districts under jurisdiction include Shinan, Shibei, Sifang, Licang, Laoshang, Chengyang, and Huangdao. Besides, 5 cities (county level), i.e. Jimo, Jiaozhou, Jiaonan, Pingdu, and Laixi are also under domination of Qingdao City.

Qingdao lies in the North Temperate Zone with a monsoon climate. Due to the direct influence of the sea, and southeast monsoon from the ocean, the climate of the city also has obvious oceanic features: moist air, abundant precipitation, modest temperatures, and distinctive seasons. According to the meteorological data recorded since 1898, average temperature in Qingdao City is 12.2℃, utmost high temperature 38.9℃ (July 15, 2002), and utmost low temperature –16.4℃ (Jan 10, 1931). Hottest month in a year is August, with average temperature 25.1℃, and coldest month is January, with average temperature –1.2℃. Annual average wind speed is 5.3m/s, mainly southeasters. Annual average humidity is 73%. Fog is quite frequent in Qingdao, with averagely 51.3 days of heavy fog and 108.2 days of light fog per year.

II. Resources
Qingdao has a zigzag coastline with many bays. The large area of mud flat and nutritious seawater is an ideal place for various kinds of water creatures, and the potential for exploitation is enormous. High content of nutritious salt has been detected in the seawater of Jiaozhou Bay, Laoshan Bay and Dingzi Bay, and the content of unusual bacterium is several to several thousand times higher than in continental shelf area or oceanic area. The mud/sand seabed of Jiaozhou Bay is especially ideal for breeding mollusks and alga. Planktons, benthos, commercial spineless creatures and inter-tidal zone alga also flourish here. Altogether there are 1,400 kinds of creatures living in Qingdao, among which 400 kinds animals and 1000 kinds of plants.

Mineral resources of Qingdao are mainly non-metal reserves. By 1996, 44 kinds of mineral deposits have been discovered and 27 kinds exploited. Mineral resources are rich in graphite, granite, marble, mineral water, diopside, gold, talc, and zeolite. Other deposits with great potential include barite, dolomite, bentonite, potash feldspar, quartzite, perlite, fluorite, and terrestrial heat. Graphite, gold, and diopside are mainly distributed in Pingdu and Laixi City; granite is in Laoshan District, Pingdu and Jiaonan City; marble is in Pingdu City; mineral water is widely distributed in Qingdao City, mainly in Chengyang, Laoshan and the four urban districts and Jimo City; talc is in Pingdu City; Zeolite, perlite, and bentonite are in Laixi, Jiaozhou, Jimo City and Chengyang District; barite and fluorite are in Jiaozhou, Jimo, Pingdu and Jiaonan City; terrestrial heat is in Jimo City.

Qingdao is rich in wind energy resources. The effective energy density is determined to be 240.3W/m2, and annual average effective hours 6,485. The solar energy is also abundant in Qingdao. Annual solar radiation is 120 therms/cm2; average sunshine hours are 2550.7 per year; the sunshine percentage is 58%.

With 6,190 technicians specialized in oceanic technologies in the city, Qingdao boasts ocean technology as her advantage. There are 14 academicians in Qingdao, and 10 of them are famous scholars in oceanic science. Qingdao has various research ships, survey airplanes, and labs with advanced facilities for oceanic research. Two out of the three main subjects of the “The High-tech Research and Development (863) Program” is being carrying out under the lead of oceanic scientists in Qingdao.

Nowadays Qingdao has: 262 thousand professional technicians, 68 independent research institutes, 13 national key labs, 51 enterprise technology centers, and 5 experiment bases.

III. Infrastructure
Sea Ports
The Old Port, Huangdao Oil port, and Qianwan Port form the main body of Qingdao Port, with other ports like the Small Port, Jimiya Port, Nvdao Port and Docks for Owners of Shell Oil. There are altogether 15 docks with 73 berths, out of which more than 30 berths are deep-water berths capable of 10 thousand-ton ships and 7 berths capable of 50 thousand tons.

The annual throughput of Qingdao Port now exceeds 100 million tons. 450 ports in 130 countries/regions have business connections with Qingdao. It has the biggest container dock in China, 200 thousand-ton ore docks, 200 thousand-ton crude oil dock and 100 thousand-ton coal dock.

Airport
Qingdao airport is a first class open airport. It is ranked civil aviation 4D. 13 airline companies from home and abroad are operating 56 airlines domestic and international here.

Railway
The container transportation from the International Container Station directly to the Asia-Europe Continental Bridge has already been opened. Direct sea-railway services to Lanzhou, Chengdu, Xian, Zhengzhou, Jinan, and Jining are also in operation, and custom formalities can be gone through locally.

Mail and Telecommunication
Mail services include: business mail, express mail, postal savings, time-limited mail, and paper/magazine subscription. The total capacity of telephone switch is 1.87 million, including 13,332 long distance lines. There are averagely 80 telephones per 100 homes.

IV. Economic Development
Industry
Qingdao is one of the important Industrial bases in China. The Industries of machinery, electronics, food processing and chemicals has become the pillar Industries of the city. The products of color TV, refrigerator, washing machine, automobile, and beer have taken significant domestic market shares. The industrial added value in 2001 was RMB 57.82 billion yuan, 16.4% higher than previous year and 3.4 percent over the plan; profits and tax was 13.59 billion RMB yuan, increased 14.7%; profits was 5.89 billion RMB yuan, 17.6% higher. Industrial output from private enterprises reached RMB 20.25 billion yuan, increased 34.4%. After years of development, Qingdao now has some large influential enterprise groups. Haier Group, Hisense Group, Tsingtao Beer Group, Etsong Group, Double Stars Group, and Aucma Group, etc, are now the leading enterprises in domestic Industries. Aiming to speed up the development of the Industrial parks, Qingdao government had set up 12 “Key Industrial Parks” by the beginning of 2002. Besides, Qingdao has 6 nationally famous brands, 35 provincially famous brands, and 70 famous brands of Qingdao.

Agriculture
Qingdao has 467.4 thousand hectares of cultivation land, 730 km of coastline, and 775mm of annual average precipitation. The conditions are good for cultivation, livestock farming, and aquatic breeding. The 5 county-level cities of Qingdao are all national bases for commercial grain, and the annual output was 2,539,300 tons. Qingdao is now adjusting its agricultural product-mix, trying to achieve highly efficient agriculture and balanced development for cultivation, forestry, livestock, and fishery.

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