Qingdao Travel Guide(Shandong China)

♦Qingdao, located in the southeast part of Shandong Province, is a beautiful seaside city with clear air and enchanting sea view. This city, bordered by the Yellow Sea on two sides, has the largest bathing beach in Asia and produces the mellow Qingdao Beer. To the east of the city, a short distance across the Yellow Sea, lie Korea and Japan, making the city an important port for international trade.

♦For thirty three years, up to 1949, Qingdao was a colony of Germany and Japan. Thus, it has a great deal of European architecture. This foreign architecture -a remnant of the colonial past- now beautifies this seaside city.

♦The red roofs, green trees, blue sea, and azure sky form a bright and colorful picture of Qingdao. The city is sometimes known as th

Yangquan Travel Guide(Shanxi China)

♦Location: Yangquan lies at the western foot of the middle Taihang Mountains, it is the political, economic and cultural center of the eastern Shanxi Province, and is adjacent to Hebei Province in the east, located midway between Shijiazhuang and Taiyuan and about 400 kilometers (249 miles) from Beijing and Tianjin.

♦Physical Features: The city is situated on the eastern edge of the Loess Plateau in the mountainous area of eastern Shanxi. The terrain of the city slopes downward from the west to the east with the mountains as its main part of the land.

♦History: Yangquan is a time-honored city and gains its name for the five bubbling springs of former days in the downtown city. Historically, it was always a strategic point that commenced construction as

Linfen Travel Guide

♦Location: Linfen City is situated in southwestern Shanxi Province, on the middle reaches of the Yellow River. It neighbors Changzhi and Jincheng in the east, Jinzhong and Lvliang in the north, Yuncheng in the south and finally, it is separated from Shaanxi Province by the Yellow River in the west.

♦History: Known as Pingyang in the ancient time, Linfen was once the capital of China during the Jin Kingdom in the Warring States Period (476BC-221BC). During the Qin Dynasty (221BC-206BC), it belonged to the Hedong Shire, one of the forty-eighty shires of the nation. Many places in present Linfen had their names originated during the Sui Dynasty (581-618).

♦Physical Features: There are Zhongtiao Mountain, Taiyue Mountain and Lvliang Mountains in the east and west of the c

Yuncheng Travel Guide

♦Location: Yuncheng City is located in southwestern Shanxi Province, neighboring Linfen and Jincheng within the province. It is separated from Shaanxi Province and Henan Province by the Yellow River.

♦History: Yuncheng is a time-honored city, one of the oldest birthplaces of the Chinese nation. Tracks of human life in this area can be traced back to 1.8 million years ago. It was the seat of the capital of the first slave dynasty in Chinese history, Xia Dynasty (21st - 16th century BC). In the Qin Dynasty (221BC-206BC), it was administered under the Hedong Shire. Although administrative divisions in this region altered frequently in the following two thousand-odd years, it was habitually referred to as Hedong, meaning east of the Yellow River.

♦Physical Features: The