city and capital, Shandong (Shantung) sheng (province), China. It lies in the northern foothills of the Mount Tai (Tai, Mount) massif, on the high ground just south of the Huang He (Yellow River), which provides the major route along the north side of the Shandong Hills. Pop. (2002 est.) city, 2,345,969; (2007 est.) urban agglom., 2,798,000.

Well-watered from natural springs, the area was settled in early times. From the 8th century BCE it was the site of Lixia, a major city of the state of Qi, which flourished in the Zhou (Zhou dynasty) period (1046–256 BCE). Later, in the 2nd century BCE, the town became the seat of Licheng county in the commandery (district controlled by a commander) of Jinan. The Chinese name Jinan (“South of the Ji”) came from the Ji River, which formerly flowed along what is now the lower course of the Huang He. The seat of the commandery was shifted to the present city at the beginning of the 4th century CE.

Jinan remained an important centre of administration, under various names, during the next two centuries and also became a major religious centre. Nearby Mount Tai, to the south, has long been one of China's greatest holy mountains, and from the 4th to the 7th century many Buddhist cave temples were built in the hills south of Jinan. During the Sui (Sui dynasty) (581–618) and Tang (Tang dynasty) (618–907) periods it remained a major city, under the names Qi prefecture and Jinan commandery. In 1116 it became Jinan superior prefecture, a title that it retained until 1911. Marco Polo (Polo, Marco), the Venetian traveler to China in the 13th century, visited it and described it under the name Chingli. When the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) created Shandong province, Jinan became its capital. In 1911 it became a county (under its old name Licheng), but in 1929 it was made a municipality, incorporating the old city, the modern commercial area developed after 1906, and the northern suburb of Likou.

Jinan's modern growth began in 1852, when the Huang He shifted its course to the old riverbed of the Ji, just north of the city. Although the Huang He was not a major waterway, this shift provided a link, used by small craft, with the Grand Canal and the waterways of northern Shandong and southern Hebei provinces. The Xiaoqing River, flowing from Jinan to the sea south of the Huang He, was also a route for small craft. In 1904 Jinan's growing importance as a transport centre was increased when a German-built railway was completed from Qingdao (Tsingtao), which opened the city for foreign trade. In 1912 the north-south railway from Tianjin to Pukou was completed, with a rail junction at Jinan. The city rapidly became a major commercial and collecting centre for the rich agricultural region to the north. A great market for cotton, grain, peanuts (groundnuts), and tobacco, it developed a textile-manufacturing industry, flour mills, oil presses, and paper, cement, and match factories, thus becoming Shandong's second largest industrial centre after Qingdao.

When Japanese influence replaced the German presence in Shandong after World War I, a sizable Japanese colony became established in Jinan. In 1928, during the Northern Expedition of the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) armies, the Japanese army intervened—ostensibly to protect their own nationals—in what became known as the Jinan (Tsinan) Incident. A sizable arsenal in the city made Jinan the object of contention between rival forces throughout the pre-World War II period. It was occupied by the Japanese from 1937 to 1945.

Jinan was taken by Chinese communist forces in 1948. It was then rapidly developed both as a major administrative and industrial hub. The existing textile and flour-milling plants were expanded, and an important machine-building industry was developed. By the early 1970s Jinan had become one of the main centres of China's automotive industry, manufacturing a wide range of heavy trucks and earth-moving machinery. In the late 1950s Jinan became the site of a major iron and steel industry, producing pig iron, ingot steel, and finished steel. It also developed a large chemicals industry.

Jinan is the chief cultural centre in Shandong, with agricultural, medical, and engineering colleges and several universities—notably Shandong University (1901). There are also many relics of Jinan's historical importance. The surrounding area has many well-known sites of natural beauty. Mount Tai, designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1987, is one of China's main tourist attractions.