- Shandong Province

Population: 77.8 million

Urban population: 44.5 million

Nationalities: Han, Hui, and Manchu

Area: 150,000 square kilometers

Coastline: 3,000 kilometers long

Climatic features: Warm-temperate, semi-humid, monsoonal climate; influenced by the ocean, it is warmer and more humid than inland provinces; rainy summers; dry winters.

Average temperature: -5 C to -1C in January, 24C to 28C in July.

Annual Average Rainfall: 560 - 1170 mm; precipitation decreases from the southeast to the northwest; 60 - 70 percent of the rain falls during the summer.

Physical features: Situated in the lower Yellow River Valley; hills in the central region and on the eastern peninsula; plains in the north, west, and central east; narrow lowlands in the souht and along the southeastern coast; faces the Bohai gulf in the north and the Yellow Sea in the east.

Products: Wheat, corn, millet, potatoes, sorghum, sweet potatoes, rice, peanuts, soybeans, tea, sesame; cotton, tussah, ambary hemp; flue-cured tobacco; peaches, walnuts, chestnuts, persimmons; sea products; coal, petroleum, salt.

Specialties: Yantai apples, Leling jujubes, Laiyang pears, Pingdu grapes, Dezhou watermelons.

Administrative divisions: 25 cities and 86 counties.

Capital: Jinan

Neighboring Areas: Hebei, Henan, Anhui, and Jiangsu.

Major Cities: Jinan, Yantai, Weifang, Qingdao, Zibo, Zaozhuang, Jining, Dongying, Qufu.

Tourist Attractions: Confucius' Temple in Qufu; Mount Tai, one of the historic Five Mountains in eastern China, in Tai'an; Qingdao, a summer resort city.

Source: Atlas of the Peoples Republic of China, Beijing, 1989.

Last modified: Tuesday, December 16, 2003