Jinan Travel Guide

 

 

Jinan, also called Spring City, is the provincial capital of Shandong, which is one of the big economic engines of China. It is one of the state-level historical and cultural cities of China that is officially announced by the State Council. Jinan is the center of politics, economy, culture, science and technology, education and finance of Shandong Province. It is also the coastal opening city and sub-provincial-level city in the regard of administration grade.

Jinan is located in the midwest of Shandong Province and serves as the transportation joint center of Beijing-Shanghai railway and Jinan-Qingdao railway. To the south, it is near to Mountain Taishan, one of the world cultural and natural heritages, and to the north, it is near to Yellow River, which is crowned as China’s Mother River.

 

　
Jinan has more than 2,000-year-old history, and one of the important cradles or origins of China’s civilization. Xun (In Chinese, 舜, who was one of Chinese oldest ancestry) was born here and lived here. Jinan belongs to the continental monsoon climate zone of northern temperate zone. The four seasons in a year is distinctive and clear. The annual average temperature is 14 degrees Celsius. The annual rainfall is roughly 700 millimeters. It administrates six districts and one county-level city. The total area of Jinan is 8,227 square meters with the population of around 6 million. It is one of China’s top-50 cities with most comprehensive power and top-40 excellent investment destinations in China.

Jinan is a tourism center in China, which is deeply featured of its history and status as the center of Chinese culture (In China, anciently, 中国，chiefly means the middle place of China nowadays (but some scholars think China means the center country of the world, this is also acceptable and reasonable), mainly include current Shandong, Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Hebei and parts of Anhui and Jiangsu Provinces). There is a Xun-cultural Relic Site, currently there is also a road called Xungen Road for commemorating Xun who engaged in farming in order to lead all the people in his tribe.

 

There is a world-famous prehistoric cultural site - the origin of Longshan culture, in this zone, there is the town site of the Neolithic time. There is the Qi-Kingdom Great Wall which is earlier than the Qin-Dynasty Great Wall, and the colorful statue of Arhats, which is called to be the No. 1 statue of China, in Lingyan Temple of Song Dynasty. Guo-Family Tomb Stone Temple of Xiaotangshan Mountain is the earliest architecture on the ground so far in China. Simen Pagoda established in the Sui Dynasty is the oldest stone pagoda in China. They are all the state-level protection sites in Jinan.

Jinan is also a good place that brings up a lot of famous people such as Bian Que who was the founder or establisher of Chinese traditional medicine, Zou Yan who was the master of Yin-Yang and Five-element Academy, Qin Qiong who was one of the openers of Tang Dynasty, Li Qingzhao, Xin Qiji, Zhang Yanghao, Li Kaixian were all the great cultural people in Jinan. Shandong University is also the first-rank university in China. It is powerful for its comprehensive subjects and its educational center in middle China. Jinan’s city flower is lotus and its city tree is willow. Both of them are most significant and meaningful in Chinese people’s ideology and mind.