Péninsule du Shandong

The Shandong (Shantung) Peninsula or Jiaodong (Chiaotung) Peninsula is a peninsula in Shandong in eastern China, between the Bohai Sea to the north and the Yellow Sea to the south. The latter name refers to the east and Jiaozhou. The waters bordering the peninsula are Laizhou Bay to the northwest, which opens into the Bohai Sea to the north, which in turn passes through the Bohai Strait to the northeast into the Yellow Sea to the east and south. The peninsula's territory comprises three prefecture-level cities of Shandong: Qingdao in the southwest, Yantai in the north and centre, and Weihai at the eastern tip. Shandong Peninsula is the largest peninsula in China. Stretching into the Bohai Sea and the Yellow Sea, it is 290 kilometers long from east to west, 190 kilometers wide from north to south, and 50 kilometers narrow. The total area of Shandong Peninsula is 73,000 square kilometers. Geologically it was once connected to the Korean Peninsula and the Liaodong Peninsula, but was split starting around 27 Ma ago, resulting in the formation of the Yellow Sea. In the Paleolithic, the Shandong Peninsula area was covered by forest. In the Neolithic, about 7,000 years ago, a large number of Dongyi people inhabited the peninsula. The Dongyi had their own kingdom called the State of Lai. The peninsula later belonged to the State of Qi. The Qi built the Great Wall of Qi, which is partially on the peninsula. During the Han dynasty, the peninsula belonged to the feudatory Jiaodong Kingdom. The Kiautschou Bay Leased Territory was a leased territory of the German Empire from 1898 to 1914 located around Jiaozhou Bay, where the village of Qingdao (Tsingtao) developed into a major seaport. Japan seized the territory from Germany in 1914 in the First World War. In the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, Germany lost Qingdao and its sphere of influence in Shandong. Instead of restoring Chinese sovereignty over the area, the treaty transferred the leased territory to the Empire of Japan.