Province · Northeast China
Liaoning
辽宁
Manchu cradle, heavy-industry heartland and the Bohai gateway to the Northeast
Liaoning is the southernmost of China's three north-eastern provinces, stretching from the Bohai Sea and the Yellow Sea to the Yalu River on the border with North Korea. Its capital, Shenyang, was the first capital of the Qing dynasty; the province became the core of China's heavy industry in the twentieth century and has two major ports, Dalian and Yingkou.
Key facts
Profile
- Chinese name
- 辽宁
- Abbreviation (简称)
- 辽
- Type
- Province
- Region
- Northeast China
- Capital
- Shenyang
- Area
- about 148,000 km²
- Divisions
- 14 prefecture-level cities
- Ethnic groups
- Han, Manchu, Mongol, Hui, Korean, Xibe
- Languages
- Northeastern Mandarin, Jiao–Liao Mandarin, Manchu, Korean
- Neighbours
- Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Jilin
- Borders
- North Korea
Languages
Northeastern Mandarin
东北官话
Spoken across the interior; close to standard Mandarin, with its own vocabulary and a strong regional intonation.
Jiao–Liao Mandarin
胶辽官话
Spoken in Dalian, Dandong and along the Liaodong Peninsula, a legacy of migrants from the Shandong Peninsula across the Bohai Strait.
Manchu
满语
The Manchu population now speaks Mandarin; Manchu survives in place names and is taught in heritage programmes.
Korean
朝鲜语
Spoken in Korean communities around Shenyang, Dandong and Benxi.
Name and abbreviation
The name was adopted in 1929, when the provincial government replaced the Qing-era name Fengtian (奉天). It combines 辽, for the Liao River that drains the central plain, with 宁, “peace” — the wish that the Liao region remain at peace. The abbreviation 辽 is taken from the river, which also gave its name to the historical regions of Liaodong (east of the river) and Liaoxi (west of it). The Khitan Liao dynasty (916–1125) took its dynastic name from the same river.
Historic names
辽东
“east of the Liao”
Commandery founded by the state of Yan in the third century BCE and a regional name ever since; the Liaodong Peninsula keeps it.
盛京
“flourishing capital”
Name Hong Taiji gave Shenyang in 1634; under the Qing it also designated the whole region as the dynasty's secondary capital district.
奉天
“obeying Heaven”
Name of the Qing prefecture at Shenyang and, from 1907, of the province; the source of the Western name “Fengtien”.
关东
“east of the pass”
Traditional name for the whole Northeast beyond Shanhai Pass, as in 闯关东, the great migration from Shandong and Hebei in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Land and climate
Liaoning is built around the Liao River plain, a broad lowland that opens south onto the Bohai Sea. Hills rise on either side: the Liaodong uplands and the Qianshan range run down the spine of the Liaodong Peninsula in the east, while the Nulu'erhu and Songling hills in the west climb towards Inner Mongolia. A narrow coastal strip, the Liaoxi Corridor, connects the province with Shanhai Pass and North China. The coastline, with the peninsula dividing the Bohai from the Yellow Sea, is the northernmost of mainland China.
Landforms
Liao River plain
辽河平原
The southern end of the Northeast China Plain; farmed for maize, rice and soybeans and densely settled.
Liaodong Peninsula
辽东半岛
Hilly peninsula ending at Lüshun, with Dalian near its tip facing the Shandong Peninsula across the Bohai Strait.
Qianshan Mountains
千山
Granite range of the peninsula's spine, with the Buddhist and Daoist temples of Mount Qian near Anshan.
Liaoxi Corridor
辽西走廊
Coastal passage between the hills and the Bohai from Shanhai Pass to Jinzhou; the historic route between the Central Plain and the Northeast.
Rivers and lakes
Liao River
辽河
The province's main river, rising in Hebei and Inner Mongolia and entering the Bohai near Panjin through a large reed-covered delta.
Yalu River
鸭绿江
Forms the border with North Korea from the Changbai Mountains to the sea at Dandong.
Hun River
浑河
Flows through Fushun and Shenyang; its old name, the Shen River, gave Shenyang its name.
Taizi River
太子河
Tributary through Benxi and Liaoyang, named after Prince Dan of Yan, who is said to have hidden here.
Daling River
大凌河
The main river of western Liaoning, reaching the sea near Jinzhou.
Climate
Liaoning has a temperate continental monsoon climate. Winters are long, cold and dry, with frozen rivers inland; summers are warm and humid, with most of the year's rain in July and August. The coast around Dalian is milder in winter and cooler in summer than Shenyang. Late spring and early autumn are the most comfortable seasons, and autumn colours in the Qianshan and Benxi hills are at their best in October.
History
The Hongshan culture of western Liaoning built temples and stone cairn tombs more than five thousand years ago. From the third century BCE the plain was a frontier of Chinese states, contested at various times by Koguryo, the Khitan Liao and the Jurchen Jin. In the early seventeenth century the Jurchen leader Nurhaci united his people here, and his son Hong Taiji proclaimed the Qing dynasty at Shenyang in 1636 before the Qing took Beijing in 1644. Russia and Japan fought over southern Liaoning from the 1890s; Japan held the Kwantung Leased Territory around Dalian from 1905 and occupied the whole Northeast after the Mukden Incident of 1931. After 1949 the province became the centre of the planned economy's heavy industry, and since 2003 it has been the object of successive programmes to revitalise the old industrial base of the Northeast.
c. 3500–3000 BCE
Hongshan culture at Niuheliang
The ceremonial site near Chaoyang, with a “goddess temple”, altars and stone tombs rich in jade dragons, is one of the earliest complex societies in China.
3rd century BCE
Yan founds Liaodong and Liaoxi commanderies
The state of Yan extended walls and administration east to the Liao; Qin and Han kept the commanderies as the north-eastern frontier.
10th–12th century
Khitan Liao and Jurchen Jin
Both dynasties ruled the region from the north; Liao-era pagodas such as the Chongxing Temple twin pagodas at Beizhen survive across western Liaoning.
1616–1636
Rise of the Later Jin and the Qing
Nurhaci proclaimed the Later Jin in 1616 at Hetu Ala, moved his capital to Shenyang in 1625, and his son Hong Taiji renamed the state Qing there in 1636.
1644
Qing takes Beijing
The Qing crossed Shanhai Pass and made Beijing their capital; Shenyang became the secondary capital, and the Northeast was later closed to Han settlement by the Willow Palisade.
1894–1895
First Sino-Japanese War
Japanese forces took Lüshun (Port Arthur) in November 1894; the peace treaty ceded the Liaodong Peninsula, which the Triple Intervention forced Japan to return.
1898–1905
Russian lease and the Russo-Japanese War
Russia leased Lüshun and Dalian in 1898 and built the port city of Dalny; after the war of 1904–1905, fought largely on Liaoning soil, Japan took over the lease as the Kwantung Leased Territory.
4 June 1928
Huanggutun incident
Officers of Japan's Kwantung Army killed the warlord Zhang Zuolin by bombing his train outside Shenyang; his son Zhang Xueliang then aligned the Northeast with the Nationalist government.
18 September 1931
Mukden Incident
A staged explosion on the railway near Shenyang served as the pretext for Japan's occupation of the Northeast and the creation of Manchukuo in 1932.
1948
Liaoshen Campaign
The first of the three decisive campaigns of the Civil War ended with the Communist capture of Shenyang in November 1948.
1950s
Heavy-industry base of the planned economy
Soviet-aided projects in Shenyang, Anshan, Fushun, Benxi and Dalian made Liaoning the leading producer of steel, machinery and coal in the early People's Republic.
2003
Revitalising the Northeast
The central government launched a strategy to restructure the old industrial bases of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang, renewed in later plans.
World heritage
World Heritage sites
Cultural · inscribed 2004 · shared
Imperial Palaces of the Ming and Qing Dynasties in Beijing and Shenyang
沈阳故宫
The Mukden Palace, built for Nurhaci and Hong Taiji from 1625, was added in 2004 to the Forbidden City's 1987 inscription; its Manchu, Mongol and Han elements record the dynasty before 1644.
Cultural · inscribed 2004 · shared
Imperial Tombs of the Ming and Qing Dynasties
盛京三陵
The Yongling tombs of Nurhaci's ancestors at Xinbin, the Fuling of Nurhaci and the Zhaoling of Hong Taiji at Shenyang were added in 2004 to the serial site first inscribed in 2000.
Cultural · inscribed 2004 · shared
Capital Cities and Tombs of the Ancient Koguryo Kingdom
五女山城
The Wunü Mountain City at Huanren, a clifftop fortress identified as the first Koguryo capital; the other components lie at Ji'an in Jilin.
Cultural · inscribed 1987 · shared
长城
Liaoning holds the Ming wall's eastern sections, including Jiumenkou, where the wall crosses a river on a stone bridge, added to the inscription in 2002.
Culture
Liaoning's culture mixes the Manchu heritage of the Qing homeland with that of the Han migrants who settled the Northeast in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, mainly from Shandong and Hebei. Humour, directness and the comic duet 二人转 are regional trademarks, and the province has produced many of China's best-known television comedians. The industrial cities have a strong working-class identity, while Dalian's harbour and Russian- and Japanese-era architecture give it a distinct, outward-looking character.
Opera, music and dance
Errenzhuan
二人转
Bawdy, fast-talking song-and-dance duet with fans and handkerchiefs, performed across the Northeast.
Northeastern yangge
东北大秧歌
Festival street dance with drums, suona horns and coloured fans; people dance it in parks on summer evenings.
Shadow puppetry
皮影戏
Western Liaoning, around Fuxin and Lingyuan, has a lively tradition of donkey-hide shadow plays.
Crafts
Xiuyan jade carving
岫岩玉雕
Serpentine jade from Xiuyan county has been carved since Hongshan times and is still worked there on a large scale.
Manchu paper-cutting
满族剪纸
Paper-cuts of shamanic figures and everyday life, a tradition especially associated with Xinbin.
Fuxin agate carving
阜新玛瑙雕
Agate from Fuxin carved into figures and vessels, a local craft with a long history.
Festivals and customs
The heated kang
火炕
Brick sleeping platform warmed by the kitchen stove, the centre of winter life in rural homes of the Northeast.
Banjin Festival
颁金节
Manchu commemoration of the day in 1635 when Hong Taiji adopted the name Manchu for his people, marked in Manchu communities in the tenth lunar month.
Crossing to the Northeast
闯关东
The migration of millions of northern Chinese beyond Shanhai Pass, remembered in family histories, songs and television dramas.
Cuisine
Liaoning cooks in the Northeastern style (东北菜): generous portions, stews, pickled cabbage, pork and potatoes, suited to long winters. Shenyang has a strong Hui Muslim and Korean food scene, while Dalian and the peninsula eat seafood in the Jiaodong manner of the Shandong migrants who settled there.
Signature dishes
Sauerkraut with pork belly
酸菜白肉
Fermented Chinese cabbage simmered with sliced pork belly and blood sausage — the signature winter dish of the Northeast.
Chicken stewed with mushrooms
小鸡炖蘑菇
Farm chicken braised with dried hazel mushrooms and glass noodles.
Disanxian
地三鲜 — “three fresh things of the earth”
Potato, aubergine and green pepper, fried and tossed in a garlicky soy sauce.
Laobian dumplings
老边饺子
Shenyang dumplings whose filling is first stir-fried, a recipe dating from the 1820s.
Chicken racks
鸡架
Chicken carcasses smoked, grilled or fried — the working-class snack of Shenyang's factory districts.
Dalian seafood
海鲜
Sea urchin, sea cucumber, scallops, clams and mackerel dumplings from the waters around the peninsula.
Specialities
Liaoning sea cucumber
辽参
Sea cucumber from the cold waters off Dalian, prized in Chinese cooking.
Xiuyan jade
岫玉
Green serpentine from Xiuyan, one of China's principal jade stones.
Nanguo pear
南果梨
Small, very fragrant pear from Anshan, eaten when soft and ripe in autumn.
Dandong strawberries
丹东草莓
Grown in greenhouses around Donggang and sold across China in winter and spring.
Notable people
Nurhaci (1559–1626)
努尔哈赤
Jurchen leader from the Hetu Ala area east of Fushun who founded the Later Jin and the Eight Banners.
Hong Taiji (1592–1643)
皇太极
Nurhaci's son, who adopted the names Manchu and Qing and built the Mukden Palace.
Zhang Zuolin (1875–1928)
张作霖
Warlord of the Fengtian clique, born in Haicheng, who ruled the Northeast from Shenyang.
Zhang Xueliang (1901–2001)
张学良
Zhang Zuolin's son, known as the “Young Marshal”, who detained Chiang Kai-shek in the Xi'an Incident of 1936.
Xiao Jun (1907–1988)
萧军
Novelist from western Liaoning whose Village in August (1935) was among the first novels about the resistance to Japan.
Liu Changchun (1909–1983)
刘长春
Sprinter from Dalian and the first athlete to represent China at the Olympic Games, in Los Angeles in 1932.
Economy
Liaoning was the leading industrial province of the early People's Republic, and heavy industry still defines it: steel, petrochemicals, machine tools, shipbuilding, aircraft and rail equipment. The state-owned sector's decline in the 1990s and 2000s left deep scars, and much of the province's policy since has aimed at restructuring. Dalian and Yingkou are the main ports of the Northeast, and the province is also a large producer of rice, maize, fruit and seafood.
Main industries
- Steel (Anshan, Benxi)
- Petrochemicals and refining (Dalian, Fushun, Panjin, Liaoyang)
- Equipment manufacturing: machine tools, transformers, compressors and robots
- Shipbuilding at Dalian, where China's first two aircraft carriers were fitted out and built
- Aircraft (Shenyang) and automotive (Shenyang, Dalian)
- Ports and logistics
- Agriculture and fisheries: rice, maize, fruit, sea cucumber and shellfish
Zones, ports and hubs
China (Liaoning) Pilot Free Trade Zone
中国（辽宁）自由贸易试验区
Established in 2017 with areas in Shenyang, Dalian and Yingkou.
Dalian Jinpu New Area
大连金普新区
National-level new area north of Dalian (approved 2014), built around the city's first development zone of 1984.
Port of Yingkou
营口港
Bulk and container port at the mouth of the Liao River, integrated with Dalian in the Liaoning Port Group.
Cities
- Shenyang沈阳Capital · Historic city · Industrial centreMukden: first capital of the Qing and workshop of the Northeast
- Dalian大连Port · Industrial centre · Historic cityHarbour city at the tip of the Liaodong Peninsula
- Dandong丹东Border city · Port · Historic cityBorder city on the Yalu, facing North Korea
- Fushun抚顺Historic city · Industrial centreCoal city and homeland of the Qing founders
Getting there
- Shenyang Taoxian and Dalian Zhoushuizi are the main airports, with domestic flights and routes to Japan and Korea.
- High-speed lines link Shenyang with Beijing, with Harbin and Changchun to the north and Dalian to the south, and with Dandong on the North Korean border.
- Passenger ferries cross the Bohai Strait from Dalian to Yantai and Weihai in Shandong.
Entry rules for foreign visitors are on the visa and entry pages.
Frequently asked questions
Sources
- Liaoning Provincial People's Government — Liaoning Provincial People's Government (retrieved 27 September 2026)
- 辽宁省2025年国民经济和社会发展统计公报 (Statistical Communiqué of Liaoning on the 2025 National Economic and Social Development) — Liaoning Provincial Bureau of Statistics (retrieved 27 September 2026)
- Seventh National Population Census communiqués — National Bureau of Statistics of China (retrieved 27 September 2026)
- World Heritage List: China — UNESCO World Heritage Centre (retrieved 27 September 2026)
- Liaoning — Encyclopaedia Britannica (retrieved 27 September 2026)
All provinces · 中国省级行政区
Related
Dynasty
Qing Dynasty (1644-1912 CE) →
The Qing dynasty (1644-1912 CE) was the last imperial dynasty of China, established by the Manchus of north-east Asia, who took Beijing in 1644 and…
Dynasty
Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 CE) →
The Ming dynasty (1368-1644 CE) was the imperial dynasty founded by the peasant rebel Zhu Yuanzhang after the expulsion of the Mongol Yuan, and the…
Festival