Shibei District 市北区

History

The district was first set up in 1946. It took in part of the abolished Taixi District (台西区) in December 1962, and in 1994 a new Shibei was formed from the old Shibei and Taidong (台东区) districts plus two subdistricts of Sifang (四方区). Under a State Council approval of November 2012, Shibei and Sifang were merged to form the present district. The old harbour, also called Dagang (大港), dates from the German occupation and has more than a century of history.

What to see

The Tsingtao Beer Museum (青岛啤酒博物馆) on Dengzhou Road (登州路) is built around the early buildings of the Tsingtao Brewery (青岛啤酒厂), a national protected site. German and British merchants founded the brewery on 15 August 1903, and its two red buildings flanking the south gate are in the German Jugendstil style. The museum opened on the brewery's centenary in 2003. Its more than 6,000 square metres of displays are split into three sections: company history, brewing technology, where a full set of century-old brewing equipment is shown with a modern production line, and a hands-on beer section.

Zhushui Shan (贮水山) is an 83 m hilltop park with its main gate on Liaoning Road (辽宁路). The Germans named it Moltke-Berg and built a battery on it; after Japan seized Qingdao in 1914 the Qingdao Shrine (青岛神社) stood there. The hill received its present name in 1923 and became a children's park in 1983.

Taidong (台东), in the southwest of the district between Zhushui Shan, Taiping Shan (太平山) and the Haibo River (海泊河), is named after the former Taidong District. It is one of Qingdao's seven city-level shopping centres, laid out along the pedestrian street of Taidong Third Road (台东三路), a national 3A scenic area, and it had taken shape by the 1930s.

Food and festivals

From the 16th to the 18th day of the first lunar month, the Haiyun'an Tangqiu Fair (海云庵糖球会) fills the streets and squares around Haiyun'an (海云庵), a Taoist temple in the former Sifang District first built in the Chenghua reign of the Ming and rebuilt in the 1990s. The fair grew out of the temple festival and took its name from the candied fruit on sticks (tangqiu, 糖球) that dominated its food stalls; it is on Shandong's provincial intangible heritage list.

Highlights

• Tsingtao Beer Museum 青岛啤酒博物馆: Museum in the 1903 brewery buildings on Dengzhou Road, a national protected site, opened in 2003.
• Zhushui Shan 贮水山: Hilltop park, the German Moltke-Berg, renamed in 1923 and a children's park since 1983.
• Taidong Third Road 台东三路: Pedestrian shopping street at the heart of the Taidong commercial area, a national 3A scenic area.
• Haiyun'an Tangqiu Fair 海云庵糖球会: Candied-fruit fair held on the 16th to 18th of the first lunar month; provincial intangible heritage.