“East of the mountain” still hosts China’s most revered Taoist peak
Shandong, a coastal East China province, translates as “east of the mountain,” a Jin Dynasty circuit name for lands east of the Taihang. Mount Tai anchors Taoist reverence and one of China’s longest records of continuous worship, while Qi and Lu states supply the Qilu nickname.
With more than 100 million people it is China’s second most populous province, and its 2021 economy, the country’s third largest, matched Mexico’s. Qufu was Confucius’s birthplace, and Buddhist temples in the hills south of Jinan once ranked among China’s leading sites. Crossroads trade rebuilt the province after late-Qing and early-twentieth-century hardship into an education hub with 153 higher-education institutions—second in East China after Jiangsu. Jinan and Qingdao both appear in the Nature Index top 35 cities for research.
Neolithic cultures from the Houli, about 6500 BC, to the Yueshi succeeded one another on the edge of the North China Plain. Eastern Shandong belonged to the Dongyi until Qi annexed their state of Lai in 567 BC, and in the Warring States era Qi ruled from Linzi while Lu, at Qufu, eventually fell to Chu. Qin conquered Qi in 221 BC to complete the first unified Chinese state.
The monk Faxian landed at Laoshan in 412 and translated scriptures at Qingzhou, where more than two hundred buried Buddhist statues were unearthed in 1996. The novel Water Margin grew from tales of Song-era outlaws here. The Ming created the modern province, and Jinan has been its capital since 1376. After the Yongle emperor moved the capital to Beijing in 1421, Grand Canal towns such as Jining and Linqing prospered, but the Little Ice Age later brought repeated famine and revolt.
Confucius’s Lu was politically minor yet culturally decisive beside powerful Qi in the Spring and Autumn period. Old romanization Shantung survives in dinosaur names and fabric labels.
Source: Shandong
