City guide · Shandong
1,000 km of clean coast, a free bathing beach, the island where the Beiyang Fleet died — and thousands of wild swans every winter.
Reviewed by our Beijing team Updated 2026-10-10
The short version
City guide
Photographs from the coast, and what other travellers wrote afterwards.
The place I want to live has always been a small seaside city — small enough that you can circle the whole of it without it taking long, pretty and tidy, clean air and bright sun. Weihai is exactly that city for me.
A traveller's note, 'Weihai, the small city I love'
I am not someone who likes crowds, and yet I liked this stretch of coast. Busy, loud even — and still I could not make myself leave. I arrived at midday under thin cloud with a slight sea wind and a little haze, and anybody who has been to the sea knows how good that walking weather is.
A traveller's note, 'Silver Sand, Blue Sea, Where Heaven Ends'
Weihai sits on three sides of the sea at the far eastern end of the Shandong peninsula, which is why it is the Chinese city closest to Korea and why the light here is different: nothing except water between you and the Korean coast. It is small. You can drive the whole city in an afternoon, and the drive is the point — cliffs, fishing villages, a pebble bay, then back.
It is also startlingly clean, and not by accident. New housing here is required by local law to be at least 50% green, and in 2003 the city took a UN Habitat award. People move here rather than visit. Those are the same thing, eventually.
The old name is Weihaiwei, the guard that awes the sea, given by the Ming in the 14th century when they planted a garrison against Japanese pirates. The first unit of the Qing Beiyang Fleet was raised here, and Liugong Island in the harbour became its base and then the theatre in which the empire lost the 1894 naval war; Japan occupied the city, Britain took it on a lease three years later, and it did not properly belong to China again until 1945. The island still holds the guns, the iron pier and 28 war sites, and it is also beautiful — sea cliffs to the north, pale sand to the south.
The rest of Weihai is a beach town with an unusually gentle coast. Come in July or August to swim, in May or September to walk it empty, and in January if you want the swans. Buses cost ¥1, taxis start at ¥5, a bike is ¥30 a day and the three coastal parks sit on one flat shelf of land with barely a gradient between them.
Weihai
Seven things that are worth rearranging a day for.
Highlights
Liugong Island was the Beiyang Fleet's base and the ground on which the 1894 naval war was settled. Its guns, its iron pier and its coastal gun emplacements sit inside the Museum of the Sino-Japanese War, the fleet's headquarters still stands, and 28 war sites are scattered across the island. Then you turn a corner and there are sea cliffs cut vertical on the north shore.
Chengshantou is the headland that pushes furthest east into the sea on the entire Chinese mainland coast, which makes it the first place to see dawn. ¥160, open all day. Qin Shi Huang came twice and had his chancellor Li Si carve 'where heaven ends, the eastern gate of Qin' on the summit.
The international bathing beach west of the centre is free and open 24 hours, holds 40,000–50,000 people, has fine sand and a gentle shelving bottom, and you catch small fish in the shallows with your hands. Half the city heads here on a summer afternoon; buses 7, 12 and 19, about 10 km out.
Between November and March several thousand wild swans arrive from Siberia to winter on the lagoon behind a 100-metre sand bar at Chengshanwei. The bar is all that separates lake from sea, and the birds have grown used to people. Entry is ¥20, dawn is the hour, and you will want a long lens and a warm coat.
Xingfu Park, Weihai Park and Haishang Park sit on the same shelf of coast with almost no gradient, almost no traffic and nothing but walking path between them. A standard bike is ¥30 a day, a mountain or road bike ¥60, and the three take about an hour. It is the simplest good thing in the city.
Weihai is one of the founding kitchens of Lu cuisine, and cooking here is cleaner, lighter and more dependent on the raw material than further south — and excellent at small seafood nobody else bothers with. Prices for the same catch run well below Qingdao. In the fishing villages: hand-rolled noodles, whelk salad, sea cucumber, and mackerel every possible way.
Suggested routes
The itinerary almost everybody runs: the island, the city and the easternmost headland. Give each one a day.
Take an early boat from the tourist harbour. Start at the Museum of the Sino-Japanese War, then the Beiyang Fleet headquarters; walk to the coastal gun emplacements and the ruined batteries on Flagtop Hill.
After lunch do the Liugong temple and the forest park, then walk the north shore cliffs — the light is better in the afternoon and the tour buses have left. Back on the mainland, walk the harbour at dusk.
Stops: Liugong IslandSino-Japanese War MuseumBeiyang Fleet headquartersLiugong templeNorthern sea cliffs
Start at Huancui Tower park for ¥2 — climb it for the view over the whole city and the bay in one go, which is the orientation you want on day two.
Then the CCTV film city on Shichang Avenue if you have children — the gates, the ridge carousel, the windmill — and finish the afternoon at the international bathing beach. Stay for the light going down over the water.
Stops: Huancui Tower ParkCCTV Weihai film cityInternational bathing beach
Leave early for Chengshantou in Rongcheng, ¥160. See the stele site, the temple to the First Emperor below the summit, and the cliffs where the swell breaks.
On the way back, stop at the silver beach at Rushan — white sand that gave the place its name — and eat in Rushan rather than driving back hungry. If you have a fourth day, follow the coast west to Yantai and Penglai.
Stops: ChengshantouFirst Emperor templeRushan silver beach
The cold-season version, and arguably the better one. Two things, done slowly.
Spend the morning at one of the Wendeng hot springs — Tianmu (09:00–23:00) or Tangbo (09:00–24:00), both ¥158 — and do not plan anything strenuous afterwards.
Head out to Chengshantou in the afternoon. In winter the 'end of heaven' headland has a hard, empty grandeur the summer crowds never see, and there is nobody there. If you can face it, come back at dawn the next day for the sunrise.
Stops: Wendeng hot springChengshantou
Be at the lake at Chengshanwei before sunrise — ¥20 — and watch thousands of wild swans come off the water. Bring the longest lens you own and wear more than you think you need.
The alternative is the swan village at Yandunjiao if the lake is quiet; either way, photographers start setting up in the dark.
Stops: Rongcheng swan lakeYandunjiao swan village
One loop of about 20 km along the northern shoreline, driving or cycling, stopping whenever you like.
Start at Weihai harbour by the Korean goods tower and take Dongshan Road past the Dongshan guesthouse onto the coastal road. Through Shandong village and Sunjiatuan to Putao Beach, then on to Yuanqiao and Jinhai Beach.
Finish at the international bathing beach, come back along Wenhuaxi Road to the harbour. The path is flat and mostly traffic-free, which makes it the easy half-day ride — hire a bike for ¥30 and do it slowly.
Stops: Weihai harbourPutao BeachJinhai BeachInternational bathing beach
Sights
The one that matters
A gain or loss of one island could decide the fate of a thousand-year-old empire, which is how seriously China takes this place. Liugong was the Beiyang Fleet's base and the ground on which the 1894 war was decided; the story is that thirty years of naval modernisation ended here in an afternoon. Themed around that war, the island holds the fleet's giant naval guns, the Beiyang Fleet iron pier and the old gun platforms inside the Museum of the Sino-Japanese War, the intact Beiyang Fleet headquarters, and 28 scattered war sites including the ruined rear battery and Flagtop Hill battery. It is also, awkwardly, lovely: cliffs cut as if with an axe on the north shore, pale sand and clean water to the south.
Tip Go in the morning. It gives you better light on the cliffs and puts you ashore ahead of the tour groups, which arrive together and move together.
End of the line
Also called 'where heaven ends', this headland pushes further east into the sea than any other point on the Chinese mainland coast, which is why it is nicknamed China's Cape of Good Hope and why the sun rises here first. The blue of the water is not an exaggeration: cliffs stand sheer, the swell throws spray, and the scale is hard to take in. Records say Qin Shi Huang came twice and ordered his chancellor Li Si to cut a commemorative stele at the summit; there is a temple to the First Emperor below the peak.
Tip Open all day, which means you can be standing here before sunrise. If you are, you are probably the only one. Combine it with the swan lake in winter; they are in the same direction.
Free, all day
Clean water, fine soft sand and a gentle shelving slope, holding 40,000–50,000 people, with flowers, stone sculpture and coloured shelters strung along the shore. The detail nobody expects: you can scoop small fish out of the shallows with your hands, which undoes most adults entirely. Swimmers should not miss that it is free.
Tip Check the forecast before you go — this coast turns quickly. Bring swimsuit, goggles, nose and ear plugs, a big towel, sandals, hat, sunglasses, sunscreen and plasters.
Winter only
A national scenic area and nature reserve at the very eastern end of the peninsula holding what is described as the world's largest swan habitat. The lake and the sea are separated only by a 100-metre-wide sand bar, which also creates a 10,000-metre natural bathing beach on the far side. From November to March every year several thousand wild swans arrive from Siberia to winter; because people have deliberately protected them for years, the birds have no fear of villagers.
Tip Dawn is everything here. Get there before the sun clears the horizon, keep your distance, and take a long lens plus actually warm clothes — standing still for an hour at 0°C is colder than it sounds.
Two yuan well spent
Climb Huancui Tower and the whole of Weihai is below you — the bay, the harbour, the housing going up the hills behind. Two yuan is close to nothing, and for orientation on your second morning nothing else in the city competes. The park sits in Huancui district, sea on three sides, flattering climate and an annual average temperature around 12°C.
Tip Do this early in the trip rather than at the end, when you will know the city already and the view will tell you less.
For children
A television production base built by China Central Television with a coastal setting, running filming services alongside sightseeing and leisure. The first phase, Windmill Park, is made up of the main gate castle, the ring plaza, the village club, the windmill itself and the knights' playground, plus ten further features — the stone sculptures along the seawall, a country golf course, an outdoor training camp, a water park, the longevity island, the tangram television station, the tangram driving school, the dinosaur park and a European-style revolving bar over the water.
Tip This is a half-day with small children and skip-it if you have none. Go on a weekday in term time and you will have the place almost to yourself.
White sand
Sand so pale it gave the beach its name — hailed locally as the best beach under heaven and the Hawaii of the east. It sits in the middle triangle between Qingdao, Yantai and Weihai, and there is far more here than sand: a yacht marina on the tidal lagoon, Pearl Bay and White Wave Bay, an international club, the Three Views Pavilion, the Immortal Bridge, a golf course, an international racing circuit, a sea amusement park and the coastal pine. It is also the largest football training base in northern China.
Tip Pair it with Chengshantou rather than giving it its own day. Eat in Rushan before driving back — the journey makes you hungry at exactly the wrong time.
Quiet and very old
Currently the only Buddhist temple in Weihai, sitting inside Shidao Bay. The clouds settle on it most of the year and the incense does not stop. It holds the largest cast bronze Buddha in Asia, and Chinese, Japanese and Korean pilgrims have all come here for centuries — this was one of the meeting points of the three countries.
Tip Take a day, not an hour. Combine it with breakfast at Shidao's fishing port and then the other spreads — Big Fish Island village, the flower village of Nanche, the painter village of Muyun'an, Chaoyang Cave and Phoenix Lake.
Fishing port and hedges
Rolling ground laid out in steps, fine natural scenery, sea and hill joined, and a reputation built on four things: heroes, Chan, sea rhythm and holy ground. It has the largest fishing port in northern China and Shidao port, a first-class open port busy with foreign traders. The fishing folkways are the best part — the day's catch coming off the boats.
Tip The buses to Shidao leave absurdly often — every couple of minutes — so there is never a reason to take a taxi. Come for the port in the early morning and eat afterwards.
Year round
The 1,000-km coast is not only good for sand. Tianmu hot spring resort is built around soaking in garden pools, breathing clean air, sleeping in rooms on the water and eating green food — the biggest ecological garden resort on the peninsula. Tangbo draws its own water naturally, which leaves the ground at 78°C, clear and slightly sweet, and never stops running in any season.
Tip Take off metal jewellery before you get in or it will blacken. Do not soak on an empty stomach, straight after eating or after drinking — leave an hour either side. Walk the pools from cool to hot and stay in less than 15 minutes at a time.
Food
A Shandong speciality and the dish to start with. Thick, springy hand-cut noodles with real wheat flavour, tossed with small shrimp, clam and squid. Made to order, so eat it the moment it arrives — five minutes later the noodles have begun to go soft.
Every fishing household makes these and some are not much smaller than a steamed bun — you need an enormous pot to boil them. The filling is snow-white and fine, sweet rather than fishy, and the broth inside runs when you bite. Suck it up fast.
One of the ancient eight treasures and the canonical Lu dish: scallion fragrance against the clean taste of sea cucumber, soft and slippery, sauce thick enough to leave nothing behind. Very nearly fat-free and very high in protein, which is why it is fed to the old and the young.
One of Jiaodong's four famous salads and a classic drinking dish. Whelk from the Yantai grounds, large and tender, crisp rather than rubbery, seasoned lightly so it tastes of itself. Ask the kitchen to remove the dark oesophageal gland on the right of the body, or you will feel dizzy after a few.
Typical Jiaodong cooking, where two ingredients are left to do each other favours: abalone takes the chicken stock, chicken feet take the abalone perfume, and neither tastes alone afterwards. Glutinous collagen plus calcium, iodine and vitamin A. Not cheap, entirely worth it once.
Inherited from generations of fishing households who had nothing to cook fish with but fish. Very tender flesh in a hot stone pot, served with cornbread, and worth ordering with braised tofu alongside — the calcium, phosphorus and iron in the fish plus the soy is a better meal than it sounds on paper.
A Qing-dynasty tribute dish that has been a state banquet soup since the 18th century. The broth arrives looking like clear water, faintly acid from natural sources and warm from white pepper dissolved into it, and there is no visible ingredient in it. Insanely refreshing and very hard to forget.
The dish that marks a guest of honour here. Local swimming crab from Weihai waters is at its best in spring and autumn, white and fine-fleshed, and the females carrying red roe are the prize. Steamed fresh, served in its own shell, dressed with nothing much.
Where to eat
Tofu specialist
Every dish on the menu involves tofu, and it opens with a pot of hot soy milk while you read it. Old-style wooden square tables and bench seats. Order the dish the shop is named after — a block of tofu with a saucer of meat sauce, a saucer of chilli sauce and a saucer of spring onion. Silky, absurdly generous, and the reason people come back.
Korean food
Weihai is the closest Chinese city to Korea, so Korean restaurants are everywhere and Guangming Road is the Korean food street. This one serves on tatami with proper Korean tableware. Grilled beef is the best thing; the stone-bowl bibimbap and the vegetable bibimbap follow; the fried squid rings with ketchup sound wrong and are excellent. The ox-tail soup comes with a whole tail in it.
Local chain
The local brand chain that people actually use, busy at all hours, clean and cheap — which makes it the easy answer when you just need dinner. Dishes are weighed rather than eyeballed so nobody is short-changed. Congee and small plates in variety, beef, three-delicacies and scallion pies, glutinous rice cake, and unusually chewy fried dough sticks.
Grill, locals only
A grill locals genuinely love and very good value. Order grilled scallops, grilled clams, seafood dough-drop soup and grilled mantou; the grilled sea intestine and grilled fish are crisp, sweet and not in the least fishy. Staff are warm and will tell you if you have over-ordered. It is busier than its size suggests — expect a wait at peak hours.
Hotel dining room
On the second floor of Weihaiwei Tower, in the middle of the busiest shopping district: Weihai's first four-star tourist hotel, easy to get to, thirty dining rooms cooking Lu, Cantonese, Sichuan, Korean, Japanese and Western food. Locals call it 'eating in Weihaiwei' and the trade calls it the number one place in China for pufferfish.
Blowout
Fine dining, and priced like it. Everyone orders one main — abalone, shark's fin, bird's nest or a prime steak series from ¥388 to ¥588 — and the rest arrives anyway: complimentary small plates, braised pig's trotter, shredded scallop, pickled mustard, a plate of dumplings, a small bowl of noodle soup and fruit. Expensive and worth every yuan.
Where to stay
Best for summer
The whole reason Weihai exists as a holiday: you walk out of the door and across the road onto 4 km of pale sand. It is also where the three-, two- and four-star properties and most of the small guesthouses sit, including several that open their kitchens to guests. Ten kilometres out of the centre, reached by buses 7, 12 and 19.
Five star
Backed by hills, facing the sea, with its own private beach and a sea pier out into the water — the only five-star tourist hotel in Weihai. Fronts directly onto the international bathing beach with a golf course behind. European classical outside and modern within, international conference centre attached, Chinese, Japanese and Korean kitchens.
Character
A guesthouse with a soul, sitting on Weihai's best stretch of seafront literally across the road from the bathing beach sand. The ground floor is a small bar hung with oil paintings and a very healthy-looking logo; outside there is a vegetable garden, seafood on the grill and a stage that somebody is always singing on.
Sea view
Next to the international bathing beach, in a strong position with good outlook. Deluxe sea-view rooms and Japanese tatami rooms among the types, tidy modern interiors, and staff who seem to actually like having guests. Cannot take card payment — carry cash.
Backpacker
Right in the centre, and the closest thing Weihai has to a traveller's living room: a family-style bar with books, alcohol and films, somewhere to sit down and find out what is actually worth doing. Backpackers gather here, it is quiet despite being central, cheap, and there is free wi-fi, coffee, soft sofas and friendly staff.
Getting around
Weihai Dashuibo International (WEH) sits at Dashuibo in Wendeng, about 30 km from the city, with direct flights to Seoul and Busan as well as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Harbin, Taiyuan, Dalian and Jinan. The airport coach runs the full route into the city for ¥20 and takes about an hour and a half, stopping at Jiangjiazhai, the coach and railway stations, Changfeng, the CAAC office, Weihaiwei Tower, the hardware market, the news building and Liqun mall.
Weihai railway station is out in the economic development zone at the western end of Shenzhen Road, currently running passenger services to Beijing, Jinan and Qingdao. It is a half-hour bus ride from the centre rather than a walk, so build that in. Note how far out of town it is before you book anything around a train time.
The long-distance station is beside the railway station in the economic development zone, on Shanghai Road at Qingdao Road, with city buses outside and trains next door. Departures run to Jinan, Qingdao, Yantai, Weifang, Zibo, Linyi, Beijing, Tianjin and Shijiazhuang. To Qingdao it is effectively turn-up-and-go, every 20 minutes; to Yantai about every 70 minutes. Trunk roads in this region are all high-grade and the road network is three times denser than the national average.
Weihai has five open ports with well-equipped facilities, domestic routes down the coast and around the Shandong and Bohai rims, plus cargo and passenger lines abroad. Two sailings a day to Dalian, and a sailing to Incheon in Korea three times a week on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Longyan port in Rongcheng runs to Pyeongtaek three times a week and Shidao New Port runs to Incheon three times a week.
City buses cover more than three-quarters of the network across 20-plus routes that reach every sight and every main street: ¥1 on a full-size bus, ¥1.5 on a minibus. Taxis come in two classes, both metered from 2 km — ¥5 in a standard car, ¥7 in a deluxe one. Standard cars run ¥1.2/km between 2 and 8 km and ¥1.80/km beyond 8 km; anything after dark carries a 20% surcharge.
The best way to do the three coastal parks, and the cheapest thing in the city. Rentals are available at bike shops: ¥30 a day for an ordinary bike, ¥60 for a mountain or road bike. The reason it works is the ground — the three parks sit on one level plane of coast, almost no gradient, no motor traffic, footpath all the way, and a new view every thirty metres.
Shopping
Of China's twenty-plus edible species the spiny kind is the best, and Weihai's rocky coast grows heavy-walled, sweet, fat ones — one of the eight treasures of the sea and a banquet dish for centuries. Commercially around ¥400 a kilo, and top-grade running ¥700–1,000. Buy dried, buy whole, and check the texture.
Every bay on this coast is a prawn spawning and feeding ground, so the catch is exceptional: transparent blue-green raw, coral-red cooked, and the top of the class. Spring prawns run about ¥120 a jin, autumn prawns about ¥60. The Longxu dried shrimp from Longxu Island in Rongcheng is known as the golden hook and is famous beyond China.
Weihai scallops are mostly the zigzag species, with protein running around 60% — roughly four times an egg. Fine flesh, sweet and nourishing, and served in seafood restaurants across the city, which is the cheapest way to try before you buy.
The eastern end of Shandong has exactly the climate apple needs: enough day-night range to set sugar and drive colour. Acid, sweet, fragrant and crisp all at once. Xiaoguoguang is the famous late variety, generally ¥1.2–2 a jin, which is why you should buy your fruit here and nowhere else.
Also called Bartlett pears. They must be ripened off the tree for a few days before they are edible, and then they are sweet and crisp like nothing else. A Rushan man bought 140 seedlings from an American in 1900, most were lost to pests, and the survivors so impressed the prefecture looking for a tribute gift that Cixi named it the finest pear under heaven.
Nearly a century of local craft: a Yixing purple-clay body with pewter beaten, pierced, inlaid and polished over it in a dozen-odd steps, worked into patterns such as the Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea, the dragon and phoenix, or crane and pine. Sets run from ¥200 upwards depending on capacity and how much pewter went on.
Practical
Weihai rewards slowing down more than it rewards planning. One island morning, one long coast day and one evening eating something that came off a boat this afternoon is a better trip than anything you can fit into four days by trying harder.
| Best months | July–September to swim; May, June, September, October for clear empty walking weather; November–March only for the swans. Annual average temperature 11.9°C, rainfall 730 mm, sunshine 2,538 hours |
|---|---|
| Key tickets | Liugong Island ¥100; Chengshantou ¥160; swan lake ¥20; Huancui Tower ¥2; film city ¥50/¥40; Chishan Fahua Temple ¥102; Shidao Bay ¥80; bathing beach free |
| Hot springs | Tianmu ¥158, 09:00–23:00, Zhangjiachan town, Wendeng. Tangbo ¥158, 09:00–24:00, Zhimaling, Wendeng — water emerges at 78°C |
| Getting in | Airport (WEH) 30 km out, coach ¥20 for about 90 minutes. Railway station in the development zone, buses 1 and 12. Coach to Qingdao every 20 minutes, to Yantai every 70 |
| Getting around | Bus ¥1 / minibus ¥1.5. Taxi ¥5 / ¥7 flagfall for 2 km, plus 20% at night. Bikes ¥30 a day, ¥60 for mountain or road |
| Fishing taboos | Never say 'turn the fish'; ask for dumplings to be 'boiled' not 'dropped'; never lay chopsticks across the bowl; locals avoid the usual word for coal |
| Beach kit | Swimsuit, goggles, nose and ear plugs, big towel, sandals, hat, sunglasses, sunscreen, lip balm, plasters, umbrella, cooling drinks, antihistamines and stomach medicine |
| Useful numbers | Tourism hotline 0631-12301; Weihai tourism bureau, 26 Haibin Middle Road, 0631-5313343. Municipal Hospital, 70 Heping Road, 0631-5287508; Weihaiwei People's Hospital, 70 Qingdao North Road, 0631-5322768 |
| Festivals | Weihai international fishing festival, early October — sea boat fishing, rock fishing and freshwater casting with nearly a thousand anglers from more than ten countries. Rongcheng international fishermen's festival, 23–26 July at Shidao, every three years. Gutsiu festival 20–21 April. Wendeng Kunyu Mountain festival 20–22 May |
Tips
This coast changes its mind fast and a morning that looks settled can turn. Check before you set out, especially if you are heading to Chengshantou, where the surf decides how much of the site you can walk.
Not straight onto skin — soften with toner and lotion first, then apply something high-factor and waterproof, or it is pointless. Put a little conditioner in your hair as a barrier, and carry after-sun for the evening, because salt water plus sun hurts more than sun alone.
Avoid direct sun around noon. Drink steadily rather than in huge drafts — too much at once dilutes your salts, and ice-cold water after exercise causes cramps. Mung-bean soup, chrysanthemum tea and watermelon all help. Wear fabrics that breathe, never synthetics.
Fresh whelk has a purple-brown gland on the right side of the body that must come out before serving. Most kitchens in Weihai do it properly. If you feel light-headed after eating it, that is why.
Leave an hour either side of eating or drinking before you get into the springs. Go cool pool to hot, stay under 15 minutes at a time, get out if you feel chest-tight, dry-mouthed or light-headed, and put cream on afterwards or dry skin will not forgive you.
For cheap, varied and genuinely fresh seafood go to a produce trading market or a dried-goods market rather than the tourist stalls. In the wholesale belt around the triangle garden the same goods cost noticeably less, but check quality carefully and be ready to haggle.
Background
Weihai lies at the eastern end of the uplifted Jiaobei block where it meets the eastern edge of the Jiaolai depression, and that geography plus the sea and the hills produces its climate. At mid-latitude it is a temperate monsoon climate with marked seasons, but compare it with inland places on the same latitude and you get more rain, a moderate annual temperature and gentler weather overall. The sea does the rest: cool springs, cool summers, warm autumns, mild winters, small day-to-night swings, a long frost-free period, plenty of wind and plenty of humidity.
In figures: an annual mean temperature of 11.9°C, average precipitation of 730.2 mm and 2,538.2 hours of sunshine a year. It is the coastal city closest to Korea anywhere in mainland China, and in 2003 it received a UN Habitat award as one of the most liveable cities in the world.
People have lived here since the Neolithic. After Qin Shi Huang unified the country in 221 BC the area belonged first to Qi commandery and then to Jiaodong, as Chu county; in the Three Kingdoms period it fell under Wei's Donglai commandery as Changyang county. The name itself is Ming: in the Hongwu reign, to guard against Japanese pirates, three li was split off Xinwang district and a garrison established called Weihaiwei — the guard that awes the sea. Its position closes the matter: three sides sea, one side mountain, the most formidable ground on the coast and the key to maritime defence.
From the Guangxu reign the Qing stationed a naval command here with a mine corps, workshops, a naval school and new batteries, making it both a fortress and the Beiyang Fleet's base. In the 1894–95 war the fleet was attacked from both sides and wiped out and Weihai fell. Japan occupied, then three years later Britain took a lease, and after a brief republican recovery it became a Japanese colony again until the end of the war. Weihai is now a PLA naval base.
For a city this size it is unusually mixed: 47 ethnic groups are represented and about 29,200 people — Han plus 46 minorities including Korean, Manchu, Wa, Mongol, Hui, Lahu, Bai, Dai, Miao, Tujia, Yi, Dong, Tibetan, Uygur and Zhuang — live here in the built-up area.
The festivals tell you what this coast actually does for a living. The Rongcheng international fishermen's festival runs triennially from 23 to 26 July at Shidao and grew out of the older grain-rain festival held on 20 or 21 April, when three days of ceremonies sent the fleet out: fetching the sea god from his temple, sacrificing to the sea and to the boats, and finally a feast. Weihai's international fishing festival in early October draws nearly a thousand anglers from a dozen countries to sea boat fishing, rock fishing and freshwater casting, and holds a national fishing-tackle expo alongside it.
Travel with them
Directed by Lin Nong, 1962, 101 minutes
Japan provokes incidents inside Chinese waters; the dowager tries to buy peace and sends Li Hongzhang to negotiate, and a Chinese merchant ship is sunk for the trouble. Deng Shichang and other officers petition twice to fight and are refused; eventually the navy gambles everything and loses it. Watch it the night before Liugong Island.
Chen Yue
The war that changed China's fate and whose consequences ran deeper than its battles. In 1894 the Qing retreated on land and sea with no answer to anything, and when the Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed the paper tiger was punctured and the scramble for concessions began in earnest.
Yang Jichen
Home is where a person's life and spirit begin and end, and everyone has something to say about theirs. For this writer the Chinese coastal city of Weihai is precisely the subject he cannot stop writing about — a book of complaint and love in equal measure.
Gala
About ideals and about sticking with them. Ideals everybody has; holding one for nine years is harder. Play it on the coastal bike path between the three parks and pretend you are twenty-two again.
The questions visitors ask us most about Weihai, answered plainly.
Prices and practical details are reviewed every month by our Beijing team and updated the day a rule changes.
July to September if you want to swim — the sea is warm and the city is at its liveliest. May, June, September and October are cooler, clearer and much emptier, and are the best months for walking the coast. Come between November and March only for the swans: it is genuinely cold, and several thousand of them winter on the lagoon at Rongcheng.
Yes, for one specific thing. From November to March several thousand wild swans fly in from Siberia and winter on the water at Chengshanwei, and seeing them lift off at dawn is worth a freezing morning. Pair it with a hot spring at Wendeng — Tianmu and Tangbo are both ¥158, and Tangbo's water leaves the ground at 78°C — and a winter day here becomes a very good one.
Boats run from Weihai's tourist harbour on the north side of the bay and the crossing is short. The island ticket is ¥100 and covers the war museum, the Beiyang Fleet headquarters, the forest park and the Liugong temple, with the island open 07:00–17:00. Allow half a day; going in the morning gets you better light and fewer tour groups.
Seafood, and the plainer the better. Start with hand-rolled noodles — thick, wheaty, chewy — with small shrimp, clam and squid stirred through, then mackerel dumplings the size of a small bun, sea cucumber braised with scallion, cold-dressed whelk and abalone stewed with chicken feet. Finish with hand-torn mackerel and a jujube-studded steamed bun. A comparable table costs noticeably less than in Qingdao.
The fishing villages along this coast keep a set worth respecting. Never say 'turn the fish' at table, because turning suggests capsizing; ask for dumplings to be 'boiled' rather than 'dropped'; never lay your chopsticks across your bowl, which suggests a mast laid down; and locals call coal something other than its usual name because it sounds like bad luck. Nobody will scold you — they will just be quietly pleased you knew.
Roughly ¥400–600 a day for one person including a mid-range room, once you are here. The big-ticket items are fixed and known in advance: Liugong Island ¥100, Chengshantou ¥160, the film city ¥50, Chishan Fahua Temple ¥102, either hot spring ¥158. Everything that matters about Weihai beyond that is free — the beach, the coastal parks, the bike ride, the sunrise.
Swimsuit, goggles, nose clip and ear plugs, a big towel, sandals, a hat, sunglasses, sunscreen and lip balm, plasters and an umbrella. Add something to cool you down and antihistamines and stomach medicine, because you will eat seafood and you may react to it. Check the forecast the night before: the weather here changes fast and You never want to arrive at an empty beach in a squall.
Coach is easiest: departures to Qingdao run about every 20 minutes and to Yantai about every 70 minutes, and the coastal road between the three cities is one of the best drives in the province. Trains connect Qingdao, Jinan and Beijing. From Jinan, Shandong's capital, allow about 4 hours by road or rail, or fly — Weihai Dashuibo (WEH) also has direct flights to Seoul and Busan.
Plan this trip
The same places, with a driver, an English-speaking guide and the tickets already bought.
City guides
Dalian
City guide · 15 tours
The Northern Pearl — China's most romantic coastal city.
Shenyang
City guide · 12 tours
Where the Qing dynasty began — an imperial palace, a warlord's mansion and the cheapest good food in the northeast.
Changbai Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
A volcano on the North Korean border, a jade-green crater lake at 2,189 m, and hot springs on the way down.
Kunming
City guide · 12 tours
China's Spring City — a mild plateau capital of flowers, markets and the Stone Forest, with gulls on the lake in winter.
Dali
City guide · 12 tours
A walled Bai town between a 4,000 m mountain and a great lake — wind, flowers, snow and moon, and life at a slower speed.
Shuhe
City guide · 12 tours
The quiet version of Lijiang — a Tea Horse Road village of canals, stone bridges and slow afternoons, 4 km from the crowds.
Lijiang
City guide · 12 tours
A UNESCO Naxi old town of canals and cobbles beneath a 5,596 m snow mountain — the cultural heart of north-west Yunnan.
Xiamen
City guide · 12 tours
A subtropical island city of temples, fishing-village lanes and the best street food in Fujian — with the car-free islet of Gulangyu a 20-minute ferry away.
Gulangyu
City guide · 12 tours
A car-free island of colonial villas, pianos and cats, twenty minutes off Xiamen — and the one place where the trick is simply to stay the night.
Fuzhou
City guide · 12 tours
A 2,200-year-old capital of banyan trees and mountains-within-the-city, where the Ming lanes of Sanfang Qixiang meet the dockyard that built China's modern navy.
Lugu Lake
City guide · 12 tours
A 2,680 m lake on the Yunnan–Sichuan border, home to China's last matrilineal people, pig-trough canoes and a great deal of doing nothing.
Xishuangbanna
City guide · 12 tours
China's tropical south — rainforest, wild elephants, Dai villages and the Mekong, wrapped around the gateway city of Jinghong.
Shangri-La
City guide · 12 tours
A Tibetan town at 3,300 m in Yunnan's Diqing prefecture — monasteries, grassland, prayer wheels and cold thin air.
Nanchang
City guide · 12 tours
Jiangxi's 'hero city' on the Gan River — one great Tang pavilion, a 160-metre Ferris wheel, and the best claypot soup you will eat in China.
Hefei
City guide · 12 tours
Anhui's 2,000-year-old capital: the hometown of China's model judge, a moat-turned-garden ring, and the fast rail gateway to Huangshan.
Hongcun
City guide · 12 tours
A 900-year-old Hui village laid out as an ox, with water running to every door and a mirror-still crescent pond at its heart.
Wuhan
City guide · 12 tours
Three towns, two rivers and the best breakfast in China — a huge, blunt river city of bridges, lakes and cheap, brilliant street food.
Changsha
City guide · 12 tours
Hunan's loud, young capital: a 3,000-year-old city that eats chilli-hot food, stays up all night and treats foot massage as a civic duty.
Fenghuang Ancient Town
City guide · 12 tours
The stilt-house river town of Shen Congwen's 'Border Town' — glowing lanterns, stepping stones and the best two nights in western Hunan.
Lushan
City guide · 12 tours
A cloud-wrapped granite mountain with a Victorian hill station on top, waterfalls in three tiers, and the mist that Su Shi said you could never see through.
Wuyuan
City guide · 12 tours
China's 'most beautiful countryside' — dozens of white-walled Huizhou villages strung along streams and terraced into the hills, and two weeks a year of gold.
Mount Heng (Hengshan, Hunan)
City guide · 12 tours
The South Great Peak: a pilgrimage mountain of 72 summits where the temples run all the way to the top, and the sunrise over the cloud sea is the whole point.
Huangshan
City guide · 12 tours
Yellow Mountain: 82 granite peaks of twisted pines and grotesque rock, a sea of cloud that changes by the hour, and hot springs at the foot.
Wudang Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
The Taoist first mountain of China — a gilded bronze hall on a 1,612 m summit, temples hung off cliff faces, and the birthplace of tai chi.
Luoyang
City guide · 12 tours
Thirteen dynasties, 100,000 Buddhas carved into a river cliff, China's first Buddhist temple — and a whole city that turns peony-pink every April.
Yuntai Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
A UNESCO geopark in Henan where red-stone gorges squeeze a river to a slot, a 314 m waterfall drops in one plunge, and every path leads to another pool.
Rizhao
City guide · 12 tours
A low-key Shandong beach town where the sun rises straight out of the Yellow Sea, the sand runs 60 km and a seafood dinner costs less than a coffee in Shanghai.
Yantai
City guide · 12 tours
A northern Shandong port of fairy-tale cliffs, wine cellars and long golden beaches — where emperors once hunted the elixir of life and China's wine industry still begins.
Lianyungang
City guide · 12 tours
A working Jiangsu port with a myth in the middle of it — the Flower-Fruit Mountain of Journey to the West, a sea causeway to a big island beach, and some of the cheapest seafood on the coast.
Sanqing Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
A vertical forest of granite pillars in Jiangxi — the Python Out of the Mountain, the Goddess of the East Sea, two cable cars and a cliff-hugging walkway at 1,660 metres.
Tianjin
City guide · 12 tours
Beijing's port city next door — a river of 24 bridges, 2,000 colonial villas, and the best street breakfast in northern China.
Datong
City guide · 12 tours
A frontier capital of carved Buddhas — the Yungang Grottoes, a temple pinned to a cliff, and the oldest wooden tower in China.
Taiyuan
City guide · 12 tours
Shanxi's provincial capital and noodle heartland — the spring of Jinci, two Ming pagodas, and a museum that explains the whole province.
Pingyao
City guide · 12 tours
China's best-preserved ancient walled town — a Ming wall, the first Chinese bank, and two temples of painted clay just outside the gates.
Wutai Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
China's foremost Buddhist mountain — fifty-plus temples in one valley, crowned by five flat-topped peaks up to 3,058 m.
Hulunbuir
City guide · 12 tours
China's finest grassland — a 263,000 km² sweep of steppe, birch forest and border river, best driven with the windows down.
The Forbidden City
City guide · 12 tours
Beijing's 600-year imperial palace — 8,700 rooms behind a 72-hectare wall, and the largest surviving wooden palace complex on earth.
Sanya
City guide · 12 tours
China's only true winter-sun coast — four very different bays, a coral island and a 108 m sea Buddha, all at 18° north.
Haikou
City guide · 12 tours
Hainan's capital is the island's living city — 600-year-old arcade streets, a volcanic village, and a morning-tea-to-midnight food culture.
Beihai
City guide · 12 tours
24 km of fine white sand on one side, a volcanic island of coral and lava on the other — plus a 19th-century arcade old street in between.
Nanning
City guide · 12 tours
Guangxi's green capital is a gateway to Detian Falls, Beihai and Vietnam — and a genuinely excellent food city if you let it slow you down.
Guangxi
City guide · 12 tours
One autonomous region, a dozen landscapes — limestone peaks and rice terraces in the north, a Vietnam border and a warm gulf coast in the south.
Huizhou
City guide · 12 tours
A free West Lake, a Taoist mountain and 200 km of white-sand coast — the Pearl River Delta's most underrated weekend.
Beidaihe
City guide · 12 tours
Northern China's classic beach escape — one sunrise headland, 10 km of calm swimming water, and a bird flyway overhead twice a year.
Shanhaiguan
City guide · 12 tours
The town where the Great Wall stops being a rumour of mountains and walks into the Bohai Sea.
Baiyangdian
City guide · 12 tours
The biggest freshwater lake on the North China Plain — and almost none of it can be reached except by boat.
Qinhuangdao
City guide · 12 tours
126 km of Bohai coast in one municipality — a working port, two famous resorts, and the only desert dunes that meet this sea.
Yesanpo
City guide · 12 tours
Gorge country where the Taihang and Yan ranges collide — 52.5 km of canyon walls, a cave that spits fish, and a river to fall off.
Zhuhai
City guide · 12 tours
The delta's slow city: a 28 km promenade, 146 islands, oysters fattened where the river meets the sea.
Wuyi Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
Nine bends of clear water, red sandstone cliffs, and the tea that made a mountain's name.
Jiuzhaigou
City guide · 12 tours
108 mineral-blue lakes in one 55 km valley — the place that ruins water everywhere else for you.
Mount Siguniang
City guide · 12 tours
Four snow peaks, three valleys, and the friendliest 5,000 m mountain in China to stand on top of.
Hailuogou
City guide · 12 tours
A glacier that comes down to 2,850 m, hot springs in the forest, and Gongga Shan filling the sky above both.
Daocheng Yading
City guide · 12 tours
Three 6,000 m sacred peaks, glacial lakes at 4,600 m and twenty hours of road — the hardest, highest payoff in Sichuan.
Shunan Bamboo Sea
City guide · 12 tours
Seventy thousand mu of bamboo over twenty-eight hills, a red sandstone corridor under a closed green roof, and a banquet made entirely of bamboo.
Dujiangyan
City guide · 12 tours
Not a monument but a machine: three pieces of engineering with no dam, still doing their job after 2,270 years.
Qingcheng Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
The mountain where Daoism was organised, and the one Chengdu escapes to when the basin turns into an oven.
Qingdao
City guide · 12 tours
Red-tiled roofs, cold beer and a granite mountain that walks straight into the sea — the easiest good time on the Yellow Sea.
Mount Tai
City guide · 12 tours
1,545 metres, 6,290 stone steps and three thousand years of emperors — the one mountain in China that is also a document.
Jinan
City guide · 12 tours
A provincial capital with 700 springs under the pavement — people still queue at the spouts to fill their kettles.
Qufu
City guide · 12 tours
One family, two thousand years of steles, and a ¥150 pass that covers the lot — the easiest serious day trip in Shandong.
Penglai
City guide · 12 tours
China's immortals' coast — a Song-dynasty naval harbour you can walk for free, a mythology nobody ever found, and the ferry to 32 islands.
Changdao
City guide · 12 tours
32 islands, one causeway, a ¥150 land pass, tens of thousands of gulls and nowhere you can drive — the place where everything happens by boat.
Nanjing
City guide · 12 tours
Capital of six dynasties, capital of the Republic, and the city that eats more duck than anywhere else on earth.
Suzhou
City guide · 12 tours
Two thousand five hundred years of canals, sixty surviving gardens, and a city that shuts its gates at half past five.
Zhouzhuang
City guide · 12 tours
Nine hundred years, fourteen bridges, one ticket — and a town that only makes sense before eight in the morning.
Tongli
City guide · 12 tours
Fifteen canals, seven islets, forty-nine bridges — and a town that still gets up at dawn because it lives here.
Wuxi
City guide · 12 tours
Taihu on one side, a Grand Buddha on the next hill, and ribs sweet enough to argue about — the most underrated city on the Yangtze delta.
Yangzhou
City guide · 12 tours
A city built by salt merchants who had more money than restraint — gardens, a narrow lake, and the best breakfast in China.
Zhenjiang
City guide · 12 tours
Three hills, one ferry landing, and an unreasonable share of Chinese literature — the Yangtze city people drive past.
Changzhou
City guide · 12 tours
A 2,500-year-old canal city that built a dinosaur park and refuses to apologise for it.
Wuzhen
City guide · 12 tours
A town that is two towns: the older, quieter East Zone and the lit-up West Zone you sleep inside.
Xitang
City guide · 12 tours
Nine canals, 122 lanes, one long roofed corridor — and a town that still works for a living.
Hangzhou
City guide · 12 tours
A lake in the middle of a city, a tea village in the hills, and two thousand years of getting the mood right.
Xixi Wetland
City guide · 12 tours
Ten square kilometres of marsh inside Hangzhou, and the only way into half of it is a boat.
Ningbo
City guide · 12 tours
A 7,000-year-old port with Asia's oldest private library, a free waterfront 20 years older than Shanghai's, and the best seafood before the islands.
Mount Putuo
City guide · 12 tours
A Buddhist island with no cars, three great temples and a ¥10 lunch that is the point of the place.
Qiandao Lake
City guide · 12 tours
A thousand islands that did not exist sixty years ago, and the cleanest big-lake water in China.
Shaoxing
City guide · 12 tours
Two and a half thousand years of water-town China, and Lu Xun's house is free.
Zhoushan
City guide · 12 tours
1,390 islands, one road bridge in, and a harbour that lands more fish than almost anywhere on earth.
Hengdian
City guide · 12 tours
A backlot the size of a town, where the palaces are copies and the film crews are real.
Yandang Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
A volcano that weathering turned into scenery — 500-odd sights of peak, cave and waterfall across eight scenic areas.
Zhejiang
City guide · 12 tours
One small, mountainous, absurdly rich province that holds a lake, two canal towns, a Buddhist island and a dead volcano.
Hong Kong Outlying Islands
City guide · 12 tours
Two hundred-odd islands, half an hour of ferry from the financial district, and not a car on three of them.
Hong Kong Shopping
City guide · 12 tours
A duty-free port where the tag starts lower, two citywide sale seasons knock a third off, and every mall sits on an MTR exit.
Macao
City guide · 12 tours
Four hundred years of Portuguese streets, a fake Venice under a painted sky, and the best egg tart in Asia.
Urumqi
City guide · 12 tours
The city furthest from the sea, with a snow range on its doorstep and dinner starting at nine.
Hong Kong SAR, China
City guide · 11 tours
A harbour skyline you already know by heart, dim sum trolleys at dawn, and 260 islands an hour from the neon.
Taiwan, China
City guide · 11 tours
Night-market alleys, high-mountain railways, and a coastline that changes character every hundred kilometres.
Qinghai Lake
City guide · 12 tours
A 4,400 sq km inland sea at 3,200 m, ringed by rapeseed gold, prayer flags and the best cycling road in China.
Mount Emei
City guide · 11 tours
A 3,099-metre Buddhist summit you can reach by cable car before lunch — and a mountain full of monkeys that will absolutely rob you.
Beijing
City guide · 11 tours
Six centuries of imperial red walls, a Great Wall you can climb before lunch, and the best roast duck on earth.
Taipei
City guide · 11 tours
A 24-hour bookstore, a night market that never stops sizzling, and a city that apologises when you bump into it.
North Xinjiang
City guide · 11 tours
Alpine lakes the colour of poured enamel, a village of log cabins under birch trees, and the last tear the Atlantic ever sheds.
Lanzhou
City guide · 11 tours
A city split in half by the Yellow River, where beef noodles are a breakfast ritual and the Silk Road still runs through the streets.
Mount Hua
City guide · 11 tours
Five granite peaks, one plank road bolted to a cliff face, and a sunrise that justifies the 2am start.
Dunhuang
City guide · 11 tours
A desert oasis where Buddhist cave art survived a thousand years and a crescent lake refused to dry up.
Gannan
City guide · 11 tours
433 kilometres of the Yellow River's first bend, a 3.5 km prayer-wheel circuit, and Tibetan grasslands almost nobody has commercialised yet.
Sichuan–Tibet Highway
City guide · 11 tours
2,142 kilometres of cliff-edge switchbacks, four of China's most beautiful mountains, and a road the Tibetans walk on their knees.
Kangding
City guide · 11 tours
The town that gave Asia its most famous love song, a 7,556m sacred peak on its doorstep, and the last real Tibetan town before the road climbs to Lhasa.
Lhasa
City guide · 12 tours
A city of prayer wheels and butter lamps at 3,700 metres, where the sun shines 3,000 hours a year and the world's highest palace watches over it all.
Nyingchi
City guide · 11 tours
Tibet's greenest corner — peach blossom valleys, a 7,782 m peak that hides from almost everyone, and the world's deepest canyon.
Namtso
City guide · 11 tours
A 1,920-square-kilometre sheet of impossible blue at 4,718 metres, ringed by snow peaks and prayer flags.
Chongqing
City guide · 12 tours
A vertical city of fog, cable cars and cliff-side stilt houses, where the火锅 never stops boiling and the night skyline outshines Hong Kong.
Qiandongnan
City guide · 11 tours
A thousand Miao households stacked up a mountainside, drum towers and wind-rain bridges in Dong villages, and a 600-year-old Ming garrison town on the road to Guiyang.
Libo
City guide · 11 tours
Emerald rivers threading through karst peaks, a 600-metre forest growing out of a riverbed, and China's largest wild plum grove.
Guiyang
City guide · 11 tours
China's summer capital at 1,100 metres, where the nights run on sour fish soup, street-side barbecue and mahjong that never quite stops.
Zhenyuan
City guide · 11 tours
A 2,000-year-old river town where the Wuyang River carves an S through the mountains and every lane hides a story.
Huangguoshu
City guide · 11 tours
Asia's biggest waterfall, and the only one on earth you can walk behind, above and around — plus 600-year-old Ming dynasty villages a short drive away.
Harbin
City guide · 11 tours
Minus 30 degrees, a frozen river you can walk across, and a cathedral built by Russians who never went home.
Yunnan
City guide · 11 tours
Snow mountains, tropical rainforest, twenty-five minorities and a plate of rice noodles — all in one province.
Shanghai
City guide · 11 tours
A 1920s waterfront of colonial banks facing a science-fiction skyline, soup dumplings you eat with a straw, and 20 million people moving like clockwork.
Zhangjiajie
City guide · 11 tours
Three thousand sandstone pillars straight out of Avatar, a glass skywalk bolted to a cliff, and a cable car that leaves from downtown.
Guangzhou
City guide · 11 tours
A 2,200-year-old trading port where dim sum is a religion, colonial islands sit beside 600-metre towers, and the food never stops.
Guilin
City guide · 11 tours
Karst peaks rising straight out of a green river, rice terraces carved into mountainsides, and the best bowl of noodles you'll eat in China.
Shenzhen
City guide · 11 tours
A fishing village that became a megacity in forty years — and it still has 500-year-old banyans, empty beaches and dim sum worth the border crossing.
Chengdu
City guide · 11 tours
A 3,000-year-old city where the schedule is tea, mahjong and hotpot — and the pandas are just the opening act.
Xinjiang
City guide · 11 tours
Snow peaks, grassland, desert and oasis — one-sixth of China, and the longest road you will ever ride.
Xi'an
City guide · 14 tours
Thirteen dynasties of emperors, a terracotta army buried for 2,200 years, and a walled city you can cycle in 100 minutes.
Qinghai
City guide · 11 tours
China's high-altitude blue heart: a salt lake you can walk on, a 3,200-metre sea, and yak butter tea at the roof of the world.
Tibet
City guide · 11 tours
A plateau the size of Western Europe where the sky starts at your feet, prayer flags carry the wind, and the roads run past 8,000-metre peaks.
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