Travel Guide to Shandong Province: A Qilu Cultural Resort Bordering the Bohai Sea and the Yellow Sea

Shandong Province, abbreviated as “Lu”, is a provincial-level administrative region of the People’s Republic of China, with Jinan as its capital. Located on China’s eastern coast in the lower reaches of the Yellow River, its territory consists of both peninsula and inland areas. The Shandong Peninsula juts out into the Bohai Sea and the Yellow Sea, while its inland area borders Hebei, Henan, Anhui and Jiangsu from north to south. As of December 2023, Shandong has 11 prefecture-level cities and 136 county-level administrative regions. Local Shandong dialect belongs to the northern dialect system.
Topographically, the central part of Shandong features prominent mountains; the southwestern and northwestern regions are low-lying and flat; gentle hills undulate across the east. The province has a warm temperate monsoon climate.
During the Western Zhou Dynasty, the policy of enfeoffing nobles to establish states was implemented over the former territories of the Shang Dynasty. Major enfeoffed states in present-day Shandong included the State of Qi, granted to Grand Tutor Lü Shang (Jiang Ziya), and the State of Lu, originally conferred upon Duke Zhou Dan and later administered by his son Bo Qin. Hence, Shandong is known as the “Land of Qi and Lu”, or simply “Lu”. In the eighth year of the Dading reign of the Jin Dynasty (1168), East Shandong Circuit and West Shandong Circuit were established together with the East Shandong Circuit Military Command, marking the first official use of “Shandong” as an administrative name. In the first year of the Hongwu reign of the Ming Dynasty (1368), the Branch Secretariat of Shandong was founded. During the early Qing Dynasty, Shandong Province was formally set up, and “Shandong” became the exclusive official name of the province.
Before the founding of the Shang Dynasty, Shandong served as the core activity area of the Shang ethnic group. Among the five capital relocations in the early Shang period, three took place within Shandong. Even after the establishment of the Shang Dynasty, Shandong remained its central ruling hub. From the Qin to the Han dynasties, this region was praised as “a land stretching thousands li of fertile soil” with highly developed agriculture. The administrative structure was consolidated in the Ming Dynasty and officially named Shandong Province in the Qing Dynasty.
Bordering the Bohai Sea and the Yellow Sea, Shandong boasts abundant marine life resources and coastal tourism potential. It possesses rich port and coastline resources, governing 589 islands in total — 32 inhabited and 557 uninhabited. More than 70 fine natural harbors line its coast, making Shandong one of China’s provinces with the highest density of bays. Laizhou Bay ranks among the three major bays of the Bohai Sea, surrounded by one of China’s largest salt fields. Over 800 species of marine organisms inhabit the offshore waters of Shandong.
As one of the birthplaces of fine traditional Chinese culture, Shandong enjoys the reputation of the “Hometown of Confucius and Mencius, a Land of Etiquette”, world-famous for profound Qilu culture. The core spirits of modern Qilu culture embody reform and innovation, openness and inclusiveness, loyalty and integrity, pragmatism and perseverance, as well as the courage to forge ahead. Shandong is a major province of the real economy, with its dominant industries firmly rooted in tangible manufacturing and production sectors.
Shandong excels in cultural inheritance and intangible cultural heritage preservation with remarkably abundant resources. According to statistics released by the Shandong Department of Culture and Tourism by March 2022, over 1.2 million clues of intangible cultural heritage had been surveyed across the province. Currently, Shandong holds 8 items inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, along with 186 national-level ICH items and 1,073 provincial-level listings.
By 2023, Shandong had 1,229 A-level tourist attractions in total, including 15 AAAAA-level scenic spots:The First Spring Under Heaven (Jinan), Laoshan Scenic Area (Qingdao), Qingdao Olympic Sailing Coastal Cultural Tourism Zone (Qingdao), Taierzhuang Ancient City (Zaozhuang), Yellow River Estuary Ecological Tourism Zone (Dongying), Penglai Pavilion Scenic Area (Yantai), Nanshan Scenic Area in Longkou (Yantai), Qingzhou Ancient City Tourism Zone (Weifang), Ancient City of Qufu — the Three Confucian Sites (Jining), Weishan Lake Tourism Zone (Jining), Mount Tai Scenic Area (Tai’an), Liugong Island Scenic Area (Weihai), Huaxia City Scenic Area (Weihai), Yimeng Mountain Tourism Zone (Linyi & Weifang), and Firefly Water Cave & Underground Grand Canyon Tourism Zone (Linyi).
In the same year, 8 new AAAA-level attractions, 23 smart tourism demonstration sites, 10 provincial all-for-one tourism demonstration zones, 20 eco-tourism areas, 36 high-quality cultural & tourism towns at the provincial level, 66 key rural tourism villages, and 183 scenic standardized villages were newly recognized across the province.