Dalian is a major port of northeastern China and a trading gateway for all of northern China . Declared a Coastal Open City in 1984, it is home to major shipyards, oil refineries, diesel engineering plants, and factories for textile and chemical products. The city is located on the southernmost tip of the Liaodong Peninsula , jutting out into the Bohai Sea in the northeast, between China and North Korea . It is 4 hours by train south of Shenyang . It has a population of about 1.5 million, with a total of 5 million in the larger metropolitan area.

The Dalian area – c omprising Dalian and the nearby port/naval base of L u shun (formerly called Port Arthur ) farther south, and hence sometimes called Luda – h as an ancient history as a shipping port, but only became prominent in the late 19th century when the Qing dynasty established a naval base there. A new harbor for oil tankers, at the terminus of an oil pipeline from the Daqing oil fields, was completed in 1976. Dalian was declared a Coastal Open City in 1984, with incentives for foreign investment, and is now the third largest port in China .