Tianjin
Tianjin is a major international port city in China. It is a direct-administered municipality on the shore of the Bohai Sea making it separate from the surrounding Hebei province. It is one of the nine national central cities, with a total population of 13,866,009 inhabitants at the time of the 2020 Chinese census. Its metropolitan area, which is made up of 12 central districts, was home to 11,165,706 inhabitants in 2015 and is also the world's 29th-largest agglomeration and 11th-most populous city proper.
Tianjin is governed as one of the four municipalities under the direct administration of the State Council of China. However, it is the only municipality with a population of less than 20 million. The city borders Hebei Province and Beijing Municipality, bounded to the east by the Bohai Gulf portion of the Yellow Sea. Part of the Bohai Economic Rim, it is the largest coastal city in Northern China and part of the Jing-Jin-Ji megapolis.
In terms of urban population, Tianjin is the seventh largest city in China. In terms of administrative area population, Tianjin ranks fifth in mainland China. The walled city of Tianjin was built in 1404. As a treaty port since 1860, Tianjin has been a seaport and gateway to Beijing. During the Boxer Rebellion, the city was the seat of the Tianjin Provisional Government. Under the Qing dynasty and the Republic of China, Tianjin became one of the largest cities in the region. At that time, European-style buildings and mansions were constructed in concessions, some of which are preserved today. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Tianjin suffered a depression due to the policy of the central government and the 1976 Tangshan earthquake; however, it has been recovering since the 1990s. Tianjin is classified as the largest type of port city, a Large-Port Megacity, due to its large urban population and port traffic volume.
Tianjin is currently a dual-core city, with its main urban area located along the Hai River, which connects to the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers via the Grand Canal, and Binhai, an adjacent New Area urban core located east of the older part of the city on the coast of the Bohai Gulf. Since 2010, Tianjin's Yujiapu Financial District has become known as China's Manhattan and the city is considered to be one of the world's top 100 cities, including in the Global Financial Centres Index. As of 2024, Tianjin was ranked as a Beta+ city together with Barcelona and Rome by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. In 2025, Tianjin held the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit.
Tianjin is ranked as the 15th leading city in the world with the highest scientific research outputs and second in the North China region after Beijing. The municipality is also home to multiple institutes of higher education in Northern China, including Tianjin, Nankai, Tianjin Normal, Tianjin Medical, Tianjin Foreign Studies, Tiangong, Tianjin University of Science & Technology, Tianjin University of Technology, and Hebei University of Technology.
Name
Tianjin is the pinyin spelling of the Chinese characters 天津. The name literally means 'the ford of the emperor'. The origin of the name is disputed. One traditional theory says that it was an homage to the Chu poet Qu Yuan, whose "Li Sao" includes the verse "... departing from the Ford of Heaven at dawn...". Another says that it honors the former name of the Girl, a Chinese constellation recorded under the name Tianjin in the Astronomical Record section of the Book of Sui. A third says that it derives from a place name noted in the River Record of the History of Jin. The most common theory says that it was bestowed by the Yongle Emperor of the Ming, who crossed Tianjin's Gu River on his way south to overthrow his nephew, the Jianwen Emperor.Prior to the introduction of pinyin, the city's name was historically romanized as in the Chinese postal romanization. The current English spelling of Tianjin was adopted in 1958, after pinyin was introduced by the PRC government. Several countries, international organizations and media outlets have adopted the pinyin name since 1979. The Government of the Republic of China has continued to use the postal and Wade–Giles spelling since the adoption of pinyin by the ROC government in 2009.
History
Early history
The land where Tianjin is now located was created in between 900 and 1300 CE by the sediments of rivers entering the sea at the Bohai Gulf, including the Yellow River, which entered the open sea in the area at one time. The construction of the Grand Canal under the Sui dynasty helped the future development of Tianjin, as the canal ran from Hangzhou to the Beijing and Tianjin region by 609 CE. Grain from southern China was regularly transported to the north through the canal and was used during the subsequent dynasties. Tianjin began to be increasingly mentioned in records during the Song dynasty and gained importance during the Yuan dynasty. Tianjin experienced development under the Yuan and became a location for the storage of goods and grains. Tianjin became a garrison town and shipping station during the Ming dynasty; it was a center of commerce by the 17th century.Qing dynasty
During the Qing dynasty, the Tianjin Prefecture, or Zhou, was established in 1725, and Tianjin County was established within the prefecture in 1731. Later, it became an urban prefecture or Fu, before becoming a relay station under the command of the Viceroy of Zhili.Opening up as a treaty port
In 1856, Chinese soldiers boarded The Arrow, a Chinese-owned ship registered in Hong Kong that flew the British flag and which was suspected of piracy, smuggling, and involvement in the opium trade. The soldiers captured twelve men and imprisoned them. In response, the British and French sent gunboats under the command of Admiral Sir Michael Seymour to capture the Taku forts near Tianjin in May 1858. At the end of the first part of the Second Opium War in June of the same year, the British and French prevailed, and the Treaty of Tientsin was signed, which opened Tianjin to foreign trade. The treaties were ratified by the Xianfeng Emperor in 1860, so Tianjin was formally opened to Great Britain and France and thus to the outside world. Between 1895 and 1900, Britain and France were joined by Japan, Germany and Russia, and some countries without Chinese concessions, such as Austria-Hungary, Italy and Belgium, in establishing self-contained concessions in Tianjin, each with its own prisons, schools, barracks and hospitals. These nations left architectural reminders of their rule, which include churches and thousands of villas.The presence of foreign influence in Tianjin was not always peaceful; one violent incident was that of the Tianjin Church Massacre. In June 1870, the orphanage held by the Wanghailou Church in Tianjin, which built by French Roman Catholic missionaries, was accused of kidnapping and brainwashing Chinese children. On June 21, the magistrate of Tianjin County initiated a conflict at the church that developed into violent clashes between the church's Christian supporters and some non-Christian Tianjin residents. The protesters eventually burned down Wanghailou Church and the nearby French consulate, killing eighteen foreigners, including ten French nuns, the French consul, and merchants. France and six other Western nations complained to the Qing government, which was forced to pay compensation for the incident.
In 1885, Li Hongzhang founded the Tianjin Military Academy for Chinese army officers with German advisors as a part of his military reforms. The academy's founding was supported by the Anhui Army commander Zhou Shengchuan. The academy was to serve the Anhui Army and the Green Standard Army officers. The instructors were German officers. In 1887, the academy started a program to train teenagers to become army officers; the program continued for five years. Practical and technical subjects including sciences, foreign languages, Chinese literature, mathematics, and history were taught at the school and exams were administered to students. The lessons taught at the Tianjin Military Academy were copied for the Weihaiwei and Shanhaiguan military schools. A maritime defense fund supplied the budget for the Tianjin Military Academy, which was located in the same area as the Tianjin Naval Academy. In 1886, the Tianjin Military Academy adopted Romance of the Three Kingdoms as part of its curriculum. Among its alumni were Wang Yingkai and Duan Qirui; its staff included Yinchang.
In June 1900, the Boxers were able to seize control of parts of Tianjin. On June 26, European defense forces heading towards Beijing were stopped by Boxers at nearby Langfang; they were defeated and forced to turn back to Tianjin. The foreign concessions were also under siege for several weeks.
In July 1900, the Eight-Nation Alliance recaptured Tianjin. This alliance soon established the Tianjin Provisional Government, which was composed of representatives from each of the occupying forces. The city was governed by this council until August 15, 1902, when the city was returned to Qing control. Qing General Yuan Shikai led efforts to transform Tianjin into a modern city, establishing the first modern Chinese police force. In 1907, Yuan supervised China's first modern democratic elections for a county council.
Western nations were permitted to garrison the area to ensure open access to Beijing. The British maintained a brigade of two battalions in Tianjin, and the Italians, French, Japanese, Germans, Russians, and Austro-Hungarians maintained their forces using strength regiments; the United States did not initially participate. During World War I, the German and Austro-Hungarian garrisons were captured as prisoners of war by Allied Forces; meanwhile, in 1918, the Bolshevik government withdrew the Russian garrison. In 1920, the remaining participating nations asked the United States to join them, and the US then sent the 15th Infantry Regiment, minus one battalion, to Tianjin from the Philippines.
Because of the development of industry, commerce and finance in the city, Tianjin was established as a municipality of China in 1927. From 1930 to 1935, Tianjin was the provincial capital of Hebei; afterwards, it was reestablished as an independent municipality.
Garrison duty was highly regarded by the troops. General George C. Marshall, the "architect of victory" in World War II, during which he was the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, served in Tianjin in the 1920s as the Executive Officer of the 15th Infantry. The US withdrew the infantry unit in 1938, but the nation's presence was maintained by the dispatch of a small US Marine Corps unit from the Embassy Guard at Beijing.