Yantai History

Yantai was called Zhifu in ancient times but this is now the name of a district of Yantai. The contemporary name of Yantai originated from the watchtower built on Mount Qi in 1398 during the reign of the Hongwu Emperor, founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty. This smoke tower (yan—smoke, tai—tower) was intended to raise the alarm against invasions by Japanese pirates. In the year 1858, the government started to open Dengzhou Subprefecture (登州府) as a trade port after the Sino-French Tianjin Treaty was signed. Yantai’s 130 year history as a port began when, three years later, the trade port was moved there.

The cultural artefacts from Changdao county show that Yantai was one of the birthplaces of Da Wen Kou Culture and Longshan Culture which arose 5,000 and 4,000 years ago respectively, making it one of the cradles of early Chinese cultures. Yantai was the starting place of the ‘Silk Road on the Sea’ and from here the technology for making silk, smelting irons and making paper was introduced to Japan, Korea and other countries. Yantai was also the birthplace of modern Chinese industry and Chungyu distillery, one of the earliest plants, was established here in 1892 by Zhang Bishi. Many other industries followed suit after that and established their own plants such as the Ruifeng Flour plant in 1912, the Power Plant in 1913, and the Clock Plant established by Li Dongshan in 1915.