China's Germany — Tsingtao Beer, Yellow Sea Beaches, and a German Colonial Old Town on the Pacific Rim
Qingdao is unlike any other Chinese city — a German colonial port from 1898 to 1914, it has red-roofed villas, Gothic churches, and a brewery that still makes the most internationally known Chinese beer. The Badaguan historic district, where eight avenues are each lined with a different tree species and named for a different historical Chinese mountain pass, is one of the best-preserved early 20th-century streetscapes in China. The annual Qingdao International Beer Festival, held every August, is Asia's largest, drawing three million visitors to a city whose entire identity is intertwined wit…
Qingdao was seized by the German Empire in 1898 following the murder of two German missionaries, leased as the Kiautschou Bay concession, and developed as a model German colonial city with European-style buildings, a deep-water harbour, and the Tsingtao Brewery. Japan seized the territory in 1914, China reclaimed it in 1922, and Japan occupied it again from 1937 to 1945. The architectural legacy of the German period — particularly the Badaguan district — survived intact and is now a protected historical area. The Qingdao Naval Base, established in 1949, makes the city the home port of the Nor…