Jining Overview

Basic Information

• Chinese Name: 济宁
• Location: Located in southwestern Shandong province, China
• Area: 11,000 square kilometers
• Population: 8,354,400
• Language: Mandarin, Jining dialect

Administrative Division

Jining, as a prefecture-level city of Shandong province, administers 11 county-level divisions, including 2 districts, 2 county-level cities and 7 counties.

• 2 districts: Rencheng District (任城区), Yanzhou District (兖州区)
• 2 county-level cities: Qufu City (曲阜市); Zoucheng City (邹城市)
• 7 counties: Weishan County (微山县), Liangshan County (梁山县), Wenshang County (汶上县), Sishui County (泗水县), Yutai County (鱼台县) - originally in Huxi, Jinxiang County (金乡县) - originally in Huxi, Jiaxiang County (嘉祥县) - originally in Huxi.

Geography

As a prefecture-level city in southwestern Shandong province, Jining borders Heze to the southwest, Zaozhuang to the southeast, Jiningto the northeast, and the provinces of Henan and Jiangsu to the northwest and south respectively. Also, it is located directly to the north of Lake Nanyang and is the northernmost city reachable by navigation on the Grand Canal of China making it an important inland port today.

Jining belongs to the junction of Taishan-Linyi hilly areas in southern Shandong and plain of the Huanghuaihai Plain in southwestern Shandong province. The landform here is mainly low plain, and its terrain is high in the east and low in the west, with various landforms.

Climate

Jining city lies in the East Asian monsoon climate zone and belongs to monsoon climate of medium latitudes, with four distinctive seasons. The characteristics of the four seasons are dry and windy spring, rainy summer, sunny autumn and dry and cold winter. The annual average temperature is 13.6℃. the lowest temperature here is -18℃, and the highest is 28℃.

Things to Do

When you visit Jining, you’d better have enough time since there are so many things that you could do in Jining.

First of all, you could enjoy different cultures that passed down from one generation and another and has been existed for thousands of years. Here are Dongyi culture, Chinese civilization, Confucian culture, Shuihu culture and canal culture.

In addition, you could visit temples in Jining. There are many temples scattering in Jining, such as Baoxiang Temple, Qingshan Temple, Anshan Temple, Zengzi Temple, Fayun Temple, and so on. Among which, Baoxiang Temple is the most famous and well-preserved Buddhist one that has existed for more than a thousand years old.

What’s more, you could climb mountains with spectacular natural scenery and historical relics, like Yishan Mountain, Ni Mountain, Shimen Mountain, Fenxiang Mountain, Liangshan, etc. Liangshan is a must-see place where Shuihu culture developed and flourished. Finally, you could visit Weishan Lake and Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal in Jining. Weishan Lake is the largest freshwater lake in Shandong Province and the largest one in northern China.

The Best Time to Go

Generally, summer is the most popular season for Jining visiting due to its wonderful natural sceneries. Also, abundant water resources offer visitors good conditions of swimming and water playing. But it sees heavy rainstorm sometimes, so you had better take some rain gears with you. And autumn comes with sunny weather, so it is suitable for mountain climbing. The climate in this period is pleasant. What’s more, leaves in this season would provide you splendid view.

History & Culture

As a one of the earliest and most important birthplace of eastern civilization, Jining has a long history and profound culture. Most deities in mythology of creating the world were born in Jining, like Fu Hsi, Nu Wa who mended the sky in Chinese mythology, the Yellow Emperor, etc. The Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors in the ancient left traces of their activities here. It is said that Shun, an emperor in ancient Chinese, farmed at Mountain Li, fished at “Ze” and made clay pottery at “Bin” and it is recorded that "Ze" and "Bin" are in the territory of Sishui River, Jining.

During the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period, Confucius, Mencius, Yan Zi, Zen Zi and Zi Si, who were revered as the five greatest saints in Chinese history, were all born here. The five saints opened the first step of Chinese Confucian thought and culture, which played an extremely important role in the development of Chinese society and history, and also had a significant and far-reaching impact on world culture. Besides, many writers and poets came to Jining and left traces of their activities, like Tu Fu, Li Po, etc. What’s more, within a radius of more than 200 kilometers around Jining, other scholars in the history of Chinese culture were born, like Mo Tzu, Hsun Tzu, Chuang Tzu, etc. and a large number of historical celebrities who had played an important role in Chinese history were born, such as Yin Weizi, Zhang Liang and Zhuge Liang, Cao Cao, and so on.

Transportation

Known as the hometown of Confucius which is quite favorable for Jining tourism, as well as its increasingly developed economy, Jining achieves good conditions of transportation. There is one airport which is south to the Jinan airport and helps the Shandong-featured tourism of “one mountain, one spring and one sage”. Then, regular and high-speed trains are fairly convenient here. In addition to the common transportation like bus, coach, etc., here are special sightseeing vehicles in the tourist attractions as well.

Tourism

Jining has a long history and culture, which is one of the important birthplaces of Dongyi culture, Chinese civilization, Confucian culture, Shuihu culture and canal culture so that Jining is one of the most concentrated areas of humanistic landscape in China. There are many places of interest and historic sites in Jining, including 9 national key cultural relics protection units, 60 provincial key cultural relics protection units, and 145 municipal-level key cultural relics protection units. The Confucian Temple, the Confucius Family Mansion, the Confucian Confucius Cemetery and the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal in Jining are listed as World Heritage sites by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). All these spots attract thousands of visitors. According to information from the Tourism Development Commission of Jining City, Shandong Province, this city receives 2,017 million tourists during the Spring Festival holiday in 2018, and realizes tourism consumption of 2,07 billion yuan.

Economy

Jining is a typical resource-based industrial city. Jining has an economic structure of "one black and two white". “One black” refers to coal, and “two white” is wine and paper. It is located in a coal mining area in the southwest of Shandong. An industrial city, Jining has a coal-fired power station, the Jining Power Plant. The city is served by Jining Airport. With favorable resources of development, Jining achieves growth in its economic development each year. Also, with the awareness of limited resources and its limits on resource-based economic growth model, Jining keeps pace with new opportunities, and its new and high technology industries have formed. Besides, with its many historical and cultural tourist attractions as well as beautiful sceneries , Jining tourism see promising future growth.

Festivals

Traditional Chinese festivals are celebrated almost all the places, and except for the traditional ones, each place would celebrate different festivals and activities according to the local culture, customs, religion, history, climate, etc. In Jining, because of its culture, you could take part in Qufu International Confucius Culture Festival, and owing to its history, you could enjoy the Yishan Mountain Temple Fair, etc.

Dining

Jining snacks have a long history and it is popular with Shandong local people. Jining snack mostly includes two kinds, cooked wheaten food and dishes. It not only has distinct northern characteristics, but also has strong local flavor. Besides, Jining snacks have its special own characteristics. Jining was a very significant water transportation hub where people from all over the country gathered during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Then, restaurants in Jining cooked different kinds of food so that they could attract more people. Gradually, Jining had taken in many food cultures of different places and formed its own characteristics on food. What’s more, fishes are local and special food of Jining. Fishes of Jining are fresh in flavor and delicious in taste because there are some lakes providing good growing environment for fishes.