Yantai

About Yantai

Yantai, formerly known by the Europeans as Chefoo, is a coastal prefecture-level city on the Shandong Peninsula in China. Lying on the southern coast of the Bohai Strait, Yantai borders Qingdao on the southwest and Weihai on the east, with sea access to both the Bohai Sea (via the Laizhou Bay and the Bohai Strait) and the Yellow Sea (from both north and south sides of the Shandong Peninsula). It is the largest fishing seaport in Shandong. Its population was 7,102,116 during the 2020 census, of whom 3,184,299 lived in the built-up area made up of the 5 urban districts of Zhifu, Laishan, Fushan, Muping, and Penglai.

The name Yantai derives from the watchtowers constructed on Mount Qi in 1398 by locals. The towers were used to light signal fires and send smoke signals, called langyan from their supposed use of wolf dung for fuel. At the time, the area was troubled by the Japanese pirates, initially raiders from the warring states in Japan but later principally disaffected Chinese. It was also formerly romanized as Yen-tai.

The major district of Yantai is Zhifu, which used to be the largest independent city in the area. It was romanized by the Europeans...

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