China Top Travel

On the east coast of Eurasia and the southern tip of Liaodong peninsular in northeast China, Dalian stretches from 120.58 to 123.31 degrees east longitude and 38.43 to 40.10 degrees north latitude, with the Yellow Sea on the east, Bohai Sea on the west, facing the Shandong peninsular across the sea on the south and backed up by the vast Northeast Plain on the north. Dalian is the marine gateway of northeast China, North China.

It covers an area of 13,237 square kilometers and the area of land is 12,574 square kilometers.

Area code: 0411

Postal code: 116000

It has a population of 6,200,000 (2005).

Dalian lies in the warm temperate zone of the North Hemisphere, with maritime feature of warm temperate continental monsoon climate. Thus, its four seasons are distinct with neither extremely cold weather in winter nor extremely hot weather in summer. The average temperature of the year is 10.5 degrees Celsius, the rainfall of the year is 550 to 950 millimeters and the whole year sunshine is 2500 to 2800 hours.

Dalian port is emerging as a very important port for international trade. A new harbor for oil tankers, at the terminus of an oil pipeline from the Daqing oilfields, was completed in 1976. Dalian is the largest petroleum port in China, and also the 3rd largest port overall. Accordingly, Dalian is a major center for oil refineries, diesel engineering, and chemical production.
Dalian has been given many benefits by the Chinese government, including the title of "open-city," (1984) which allows it to receive considerable foreign investment.
In March 2007, Intel announced plans to build a semiconductor fabrication facility (commonly known as a fab) in Dalian. It is Intel's first fab to be built at an entirely new site in over 15 years. The fab at Dalian will make the chip sets that support Intel's microprocessors and is expected to begin operation in the first half of 2010.

During the 1st and 2nd Opium War, Dalian was invaded and harassed by the British army. As the main battlefield of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 and Japanese-Russian War, Dalian suffered great calamity in these two wars in modern history. Consequently, Dalian became Russian and Japanese colony for nearly half a century, meanwhile under the Japanese colonial rule for 40 years. The unconditional surrender of Japan on August of 1945 marks the liberation of Dalian in the anti-fascist war, thus ends 40 years' colonial rule over the city. From 1966 to 1976, Dalian experienced the Cultural Revolution. After 1976, Dalian entered the new period of socialist modernization construction. In 1984, Dalian was approved by the State Council to be the coastal open-up city and was designated as the city with separate economic plan in 1985, enjoying provincial level decision-making authority.

Dalian is a very popular destination among Chinese tourists. Its mild climate and multiple beaches make it an especially nice place to visit during the summer. Some of the most famous beaches are Tiger beach, Xinghai beach, Jinshitan beach and Fujiazhuang beach.
Tiger beach is a good place to see natural scenery. There are Seabed World, Bird Sing Wood. Xinghai beach is next to the Xinghai Park. It is about 800m long and is an excellent place for swimming.
Jinshitan beach, the Golden Pebble Beach is a tourist attaction with splendid coves and rock formations. There's also a golf course, cross country motorcycling, an amusement park and a hunting forest. It's a good place for someone who wants silence and peace and it's excellent for swimming too.
Zhongshan Square (Zhongshan District) hosts the city's financial centre and some fine old Japanese buildings, Renmin Square (Xigang District) is the seat of the city government and boasts an impressive fountain while Xinghai Square (Shahekou District) is the largest square in Asia and home to a wide range of tourist attractions.