Overview

Weifang, "the Kite Capital of the World", lies in the middle of the Shandong Peninsula, leans against the Yi Mountain in the south and borders on the Bohai Sea in the north. It holds the hinterland of Shandong leading to the Peninsula area, the Jiaoji Railway running across the urban area of it. It adjoins the famous port city of Qingdao and Yantai in the east, major industry and mining city of Zibo and Dongying in the west and Linyi and Rizhao in the south.


Lying in the northern temperate zone monsoon area and facing the sea and backing the land, Weifang belongs to warm and temperate zone monsoon semi-moist continental type of climate. The characteristics are: cold in winter and hot in summer; clear-cut seasons; windy and less rain in spring; hot and rainy in summer with high temperatures and moisture; fine weather in autumn and dry in the latter part; crisp winter day with blowing bleak wind. The mean annual temperature is 12.3 degrees Centigrade and the annual precipitation is 650 mm or so.

Weifang is located in the ancient land of Qi and people of talent have come out in succession since ancient times such as Yan Ying, the great statesman of Qi; Zheng Xuan, the great master of Confucian studies; Jia Sixie, the famous agronomist of the Northern Wei Dynasty; Zhang Zeduan, the prestigious painter and Li Qingzhao, the greatest poetess of the Northern Song Dynasty. There were also many noted intellectuals whose ancestral homes were in other places but lived in Weifang. The prime minister Kou Zhun and the men of letters Ou Yangxiu, Fan Zhongyan, Su Shi of the Northern Song Dynasty, and Zheng Banqiao of the Qing Dynasty had all left a large number of writings and poems here which are still popular with visitors from home and abroad.