scubish.com: Scuba diving Liaoning Province - China

() is a northeastern province of the People's Republic of China. Its one-character abbreviation is Liao (辽 pinyin: liáo).

"Liáo" is an ancient name for this region, which was adopted by the Liao Dynasty (Khitan Empire) which ruled this area between 907 and 1125. "Níng" means "peacefulness". The modern province was established in 1907 as Fengtian province (奉天 pinyin: Fèngtiān; Postal map spelling: Fengtien) and the name was changed to Liaoning in 1929. Under the Japanese puppet Manchukuo regime, the province reverted to its old name, but the name Liaoning was restored in 1945.

Liaoning is located in the southern part of China's Northeast. Liaoning borders the Yellow Sea (Korea Bay) and the Bohai Gulf in the south, North Korea in the southeast, Jilin Province to the northeast, Hebei Province to the west, and Inner Mongolia to the northwest.

The Yalu River marks the border between North Korea and the Chinese provinces of Jilin and Liaoning. It empties into the Korea Bay between Dandong (Liaoning) and Sinŭiju (North Korea).

History

Liaoning is located in the southern part of China's Northeast. The Qin and Han dynasties were able to establish rule over much of what is Liaoning; later on governments headed by various people such as the Gojoseon, Xianbei, Goguryeo, Khitan and Jurchen ruled Liaoning. In the seventeenth century, the Manchus established their capital in modern Shenyang, Liaoning, before they conquered the rest of China and set up the Qing Dynasty in 1644. In the last half of the seventeenth century the imperial government recruited migrants from Shandong to settle the relatively sparsely populated area. Many of the current residents of Liaoning trace their ancestry to these seventeenth century settlers. For the rest of the Manchu era, China's Northeast was off-limits to Han Chinese, and was ruled by three generals, one of whom, the General of Shengjing, ruled much of modern Liaoning.

In 1860, the Manchu government began to reopen the region to migration, which quickly resulted in Han Chinese becoming the dominant ethnic group in the region. In the twentieth century, the province of Fengtian was set up in what is Liaoning today. When Japan and Russia fought the Russo-Japanese War in 1904-1905, many key battles took place in Liaoning, including the famous turning point Battle of Port Arthur. During the Warlord Era in the early twentieth century, Liaoning was under the Fengtian Clique, including Zhang Zuolin and his son Zhang Xueliang; in 1931, Japan invaded and the area came under the rule of the Japanese-controlled puppet state of Manchukuo. The Chinese Civil War that took place following Japanese defeat in 1945 had its first major battles (the Liaoshen Campaign) in and around Liaoning.
At the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Liaoning did not exist; instead there were two provinces, Liaodong and Liaoxi, as well as five municipalities, Shenyang, Luda, Anshan, Fushun, and Benxi. These were all merged together into "Liaoning" in 1954, and parts of former Rehe province were merged into Liaoning in 1955. During the Cultural...