Tianjin

About Tianjin

Tianjin is a provincial-level direct-administered municipality in China. It is located on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It has a total population of 13,866,009 inhabitants at the 2020 census.

Tianjin borders Hebei Province and Beijing Municipality, bounded to the east by the Bohai Gulf portion of the Yellow Sea. Part of the Bohai Economic Rim, it is the largest coastal city in Northern China and part of the Jing-Jin-Ji megapolis.

In terms of urban population, Tianjin is the seventh largest city in China. In terms of administrative area population, Tianjin ranks fifth in mainland China. The walled city of Tianjin was built in 1404. As a treaty port since 1860, Tianjin has been a seaport and gateway to Beijing. During the Boxer Rebellion, the city was the seat of the Tianjin Provisional Government. Under the Qing dynasty and the Republic of China, Tianjin became one of the largest cities in the region. At that time, European-style buildings and mansions were constructed in concessions, some of which are preserved today. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Tianjin suffered a depression due to the policy of the central government and the 1976 Tangshan earthquake; however, it has been recovering since the 1990s. Tianjin is classified as the largest type of port city, a Large-Port Megacity, due to its large urban population and port traffic volume.

Tianjin is currently a dual-core city, with its main urban area (including the older part of the city) located along the Hai River, which connects to the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers via the Grand Canal, and Binhai, an adjacent New Area urban core located east of the older part of the city on the coast of the Bohai Gulf. Since 2010, Tianjin's Yujiapu Financial District has become known as China's Manhattan and the city is considered to be one of the world's top 100 cities, including in the Global Financial Centres Index. As of 2024, Tianjin was ranked as a Beta+ (global second tier) city together with Barcelona and Rome by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. In 2025, Tianjin held the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit.

Tianjin is ranked as the 15th leading city in the world with the highest scientific research outputs and second in the North China region after Beijing. The municipality is also home to multiple institutes of higher education in Northern China, including Tianjin, Nankai, Tianjin Normal, Tianjin Medical, Tianjin Foreign Studies, Tiangong, Tianjin University of Science and Technology, Tianjin University of Technology, and Hebei University of Technology.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA. Photography via Wikimedia Commons.