History of Shandong

With a time-honored history, Shandong traces its origins back more than 400,000 years, when Yiyuan Man, the earliest known human inhabitant of Shandong, lived. From around 8,500 to 4,000 years ago, early civilizations emerged one after another, including the Houli Culture, Beixin Culture, Dawenkou Culture, Longshan Culture, and Yueshi Culture of the Neolithic Age.

Historical sites are scattered throughout Shandong, including four UNESCO World Cultural Heritage sites: Mount Tai, the Temple and Cemetery of Confucius and the Kong Family Mansion, the Great Wall of Qi, and the Grand Canal.

Shandong is home to 196 national key cultural heritage sites and 1,711 provincial key cultural heritage sites. Additionally, there are more than 50,000 immovable cultural relics and over 5.58 million movable cultural relics, placing Shandong at the forefront in China in terms of cultural wealth.

UNESCO has inscribed eight of Shandong's cultural treasures on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Meanwhile, 173 items have been designated as national intangible cultural heritage and 751 as provincial intangible cultural heritage. Moreover, romantic folk tales such as "The Butterfly Lovers," "Meng Jiangnu’s Bitter Weeping," and "The Marriage of the Fairy Princess" (Tian Xian Pei) have been recognized as part of China’s national intangible cultural heritage and continue to be passed down widely.