Dalian began as a fishing village named for a green mud swamp
Dalian, the port at the southern tip of the Liaodong peninsula, has answered to Russian, Japanese and Chinese names in little more than a century. Before any empire arrived it was Qingniwa, a small fishing settlement whose name described a swamp of blue-green mud.
Russia forced the Qing to lease the area in 1898 and built a commercial town it called Dalny, meaning the far-away one, a nod to its remoteness. Japan took over after the war of 1904 and 1905, governed it as the Kwantung Leased Territory and renamed it Dairen, the Japanese reading of the Chinese name for Dalian Bay, attested since at least 1879. English writers used Dairen until 1945. In 1950, back under Chinese rule, the city merged with neighbouring Lüshun, the former Port Arthur, as Lüda, a blend of the first syllables of each. The State Council restored the name Dalian on 5 March 1981.
The deeper past involves Korean kingdoms as well as Chinese dynasties. The Qin and Han took the peninsula from a Korean state, Goguryeo held it during the Sixteen Kingdoms era, and the early Tang placed it under Andong Prefecture. Earlier names for the site include Sanshan under the Wei and Jin, San Shanpu under the Tang and Sanshan Seaport under the Ming.
Liaoning's second city after Shenyang, Dalian is the third most populous in Northeast China and its southernmost. It touches Yingkou, Anshan and Dandong on land and faces Shandong across the Bohai Strait and North Korea across Korea Bay. The 2020 census counted 7,450,785 people, over 5.1 million of them in six conurbated urban districts; Pulandian had yet to join the built-up area.
Heavy port traffic underpins its role in finance, shipping and logistics for East Asia. China Daily named it the country's most livable city in 2006, it placed 48th in the Global Financial Centres Index in 2016, and the world-cities network rates it Beta. Research counts too: the Nature Index put it 37th among science cities in 2023, and it is home to Dalian University of Technology, Dalian Maritime University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics.
Source: Dalian
