Bohai gateway municipality that ranks fifth by area population
Tianjin, a provincial-level Chinese municipality on the Bohai Sea, counted about 13.87 million people and borders Hebei and Beijing. It is northern China's largest coastal city, seventh by urban population and fifth by administrative-area population on the mainland.
The ground itself is young: river silt, including from the Yellow River when it once reached the sea here, built up the land between about 900 and 1300 CE. The Sui dynasty's Grand Canal, running from Hangzhou to this region by 609, turned the area into a staging point for grain shipped north. The name means ford of the emperor, and its origin is argued over, with theories pointing to a line by the poet Qu Yuan, an old name for a constellation, or an early place name. The walled city dates from 1404, and under the Qing it became a prefecture in 1725.
Foreign pressure arrived by sea. After Chinese soldiers seized crew from the British-flagged ship Arrow in 1856, British and French gunboats under Admiral Sir Michael Seymour took the nearby Taku forts in May 1858, and the resulting Treaty of Tientsin opened the port to foreign trade; it became a treaty port in 1860. Tensions flared in June 1870, when rumours that a French Catholic orphanage was abducting children led to riots and the burning of the Wanghailou Church.
Li Hongzhang founded a military academy with German instructors in 1885. In June 1900 Boxers seized parts of the city and besieged the foreign concessions, turning back a relief column at Langfang, but in July the Eight-Nation Alliance retook Tianjin and ran it through a provisional government until 15 August 1902. Yuan Shikai then modernised the city, creating China's first modern police force and in 1907 overseeing its first modern elections for a county council. European-style mansions from the concession era still stand.
Today Tianjin has two cores: the old city along the Hai River, linked by the Grand Canal to the Yellow and Yangtze, and the coastal Binhai New Area, whose Yujiapu Financial District has been dubbed China's Manhattan. It is rated a Beta+ global city, ranks 15th worldwide for scientific output, and hosts Nankai and Tianjin universities. The English spelling Tianjin replaced Tientsin in 1958.
Source: Tianjin
