Rizhao, literally meaning “sunshine” in Mandarin Chinese, gets its name as “the first city to embrace sunrise in the morning”. It has been established as a prefecture-level city in 1989. The land area is 5,374 km² and population is 3.079 million. Rizhao has Donggang District, Lanshan District, Ju County, Wulian County, Rizhao Economic & Technological Development Area, Rizhao High-Tech Industrial Development Zone and Rizhao Shanhaitian Tourist Resort under its jurisdiction, covering 55 townships and sub-districts.

Rizhao, a city with time-honored history and culture. Rizhao is one of the cradles of Longshan Culture. The primitive character engraved on the pottery unearthed in Lingyanghe Site in Ju County is part of Dawenkou Culture dated back to 5,000 years ago. Black pottery of Rizhao, “dark as ink, sounds like bell, thin as paper, bright as mirror, hard as porcelain”, has been praised as “the most exquisite representative of earth civilization of 4000-year history”. The story of “Never forgetting the tough time in State Ju” took place in Rizhao during the Spring and Autumn period. Rizhao is the hometown of Liu Xie, writer of Dragon-Carving and the Literary Mind, and Samuel C.C.Ting, Nobel laureate in physics.

Rizhao, a city with ecological livable environment. With no severe cold winter nor scorching summer, Rizhao is endowed with “blue sky, blue sea and golden beach”. The high-quality beach along the coastline greets the first sunlight in the morning. Rizhao enjoys beautiful scenery with mountains and sea. Mount. Wulian, Mount. Jiuxian, Mount. Fulai, Mount. Daqing and Mount. Heihu are located here, making Rizhao an ideal place for outdoor sports such as climbing, drifting, boxing, shooting, different types of cycling and canyon passing. Rizhao is “hometown of green tea in northern China”, and one of the world’s three major coastal green tea cities. In recent years, Rizhao has been awarded UN Habitat Scroll of Honor, Top Tourist city of China, National Civilized City and National Forest City successively.

Rizhao, a node city with convenient land and sea transportation. “Connecting with world by port and linking to Eurasia by bridge”, Rizhao is main node city of the New Eurasian Continental Bridge of the Belt and Road Initiative. It has equipped an integrated transportation system consisting of ports, air, high-speed railways, expressways, heavy-haul railways and long-distance pipelines. Rizhao Port ranks the 6^th among coastal ports on Chinese mainland and the 8^th in the world. Last year, the total cargo throughput  reached 571 million tons. In Rizhao, you can fly directly to 16 large and medium-sized cities in China, and easily reach over 90 cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Nanjing by high-speed train.

Rizhao, a thriving city with great potential. Relying on its advantages of port and location, Rizhao has cultivated a modern port-related industrial system with iron & steel, automobile vehicles and auto parts as main industries. Rizhao is an advanced coastal iron & steel manufacturing base in national and provincial layout, with two leading iron & steel enterprises, namely Rizhao Company of Shandong Iron & Steel Group and Rizhao Steel Holding Group. Rizhao is a key automobile and parts industrial base in Shandong Province, with key enterprises such as Great Wall Motor, ZXAUTO, Hyundai WIA, ZF, Wuzheng and so on. Rizhao is the global core auto parts production base of Korean Hyundai Motor.

Rizhao, a city of vitality and fashion. There are 8 colleges and universities in Rizhao with over 90,000 students on campus. A batch of professional sports facilities for water sports, football, tennis have been built. The per-capita sports field reaches 4.79 m², taking the lead in China. The 25^th Games of Shandong Province and 11^th Paralympic Games of Shandong Province have been successfully held in 2022. Pocket libraries scattered in the city add fragrance of book to Rizhao. Parks, wetlands, mountains and beach are connected by Sunshine Coastal Greenway, setting in mountain and ocean Scenery, like a necklace with pearls. Now, it’s common for visitors ever coming Rizhao to feel hard to leave and eager to be back.