Shandong is one of the historical cradles of Chinese civilisation — a flat, densely populated province on the Yellow Sea coast between Beijing and Shanghai, best known as the birthplace of Confucius and Sun Tzu. Both men were born here within a century of each other, and their ideas — one shaping Chinese ethics for 2,500 years, the other shaping its military thinking — still give Shandong a certain weight in the Chinese imagination. The province is also the origin of two of China's most famous exports: silk and Tsingtao beer.
For travellers the obvious destinations form a neat north–south line. Qingdao, on the coast, is a former German treaty port with leafy streets, red-tiled roofs, and a 19th-century European quarter that looks more Bavarian than Chinese; it is where the famous beer is brewed, and its beaches are the best within a day of Beijing. Inland, Tai'an sits at the foot of Tai Shan, the holiest of China's five sacred Taoist mountains, climbed by pilgrims since before the first emperor. A short hop further south, Qufu is the hometown of Confucius and holds his enormous family temple, mansion, and cemetery — a UNESCO ensemble unlike anything else in China. The provincial capital Jinan is famous for its springs; Weifang, in the center, for its international kite festival; and Yantai, at the northern tip, for apples and wine.
