Liaoning in the context of Greater Manchuria

Coastal erosion is the loss or displacement of land, or the long-term removal of sediment and rocks along the coastline due to the action of waves, currents, tides, wind-driven water, waterborne ice, or other impacts of storms. The landward retreat of the shoreline can be measured and described over a temporal scale of tides, seasons, and other short-term cyclic processes. Coastal erosion may be caused by hydraulic action, abrasion, impact and corrosion by wind and water, and other forces, natural or unnatural.

On non-rocky coasts, coastal erosion results in rock formations in areas where the coastline contains rock layers or fracture zones with varying resistance to erosion. Softer areas become eroded much faster than harder ones, which typically result in landforms such as tunnels, bridges, columns, and pillars. Over time the coast generally evens out. The softer areas fill up with sediment eroded from hard areas, and rock formations are eroded away. Also erosion commonly happens in areas where there are strong winds, loose sand, and soft rocks. The blowing of millions of sharp sand grains creates a sandblasting effect. This effect helps to erode, smooth and polish rocks. The definition of erosion is grinding and wearing away of rock surfaces through the mechanical action of other rock or sand particles.

Northeast China (Chinese: 东北; pinyin: Dōngběi) is a geographical region of China, consisting officially of three provinces Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang. The heartland of the region is the Northeast China Plain, the largest plain in China with an area of over 350,000 km (140,000 sq mi). The region is separated from the Russian Far East to the north and east by the Amur, Argun and Ussuri Rivers; from North Korea to the south by the Yalu and Tumen Rivers; and from the neighboring North China to the west by the Greater Khingan Range and Yan Mountains. It is also bounded by the Bohai Bay and Yellow Sea to the southwest, about 100 km (62 mi) away from East China's Jiaodong Peninsula across the Bohai Strait, due to be connected via a proposed undersea tunnel.

The four prefectures of Inner Mongolia (which is part of North China) east of the Greater Khingan, i.e. Chifeng, Tongliao, Hinggan and Hulunbuir, are sometimes also considered broader parts of Northeast China, and together with the aforementioned three provinces formed what was historically known as Inner Manchuria, in contrast to the Outer Manchuria (or "Outer Northeast" in Chinese literatures) annexed by the Russian Empire during the mid-19th century.

An islet (/ˈaɪlət/ EYE-lət) is generally a small island. Definitions vary and are not precise, but some suggest that an islet is a very small, often unnamed, island with little or no vegetation to support human habitation. It may be made of rock, sand and/or hard coral; may be permanent or tidal (i.e. surfaced reef or seamount); and may exist in the sea, lakes, rivers or any other sizeable bodies of water.

The Bohai Sea (Chinese: 渤海; pinyin: Bó Hǎi; lit. 'Bo Sea') is a gulf/inland sea approximately 77,000 km (30,000 sq mi) in area on the east coast of Mainland China. It is the northwestern and innermost extension of the Yellow Sea, to which it connects via the Bohai Strait. It has a mean depth of approximately 18 meters (59 ft), with a maximum depth of about 80 meters (260 ft) located in the northern part of the Bohai Strait.

The Bohai Sea is enclosed by three provinces and one direct-administered municipality from three different regions of China—Liaoning Province (of Northeast China), Hebei Province and Tianjin Municipality (of North China), and Shandong Province (of East China). It is the center of the Bohai Economic Rim, and its proximity to the Chinese capital of Beijing and the municipality of Tianjin makes it one of the busiest seaways in the world. The entrance to the Bohai Sea is considered a part of the territorial sea of the People's Republic of China due to the presence of the Miaodao islands. China declared the Bohai sea to be part of its inland waters in 1958.

Manchuria is a historical region in northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day northeast China and parts of the modern-day Russian Far East south of the Uda River and the Tukuringra-Dzhagdy Ranges. The exact geographical extent varies depending on the definition: in the narrow sense, the area constituted by three Chinese provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning as well as the eastern Inner Mongolian prefectures of Hulunbuir, Hinggan, Tongliao, and Chifeng; in a broader sense, historical Manchuria includes those regions plus the Amur river basin, parts of which were ceded to the Russian Empire by the Manchu-led Qing dynasty during the Amur Annexation of 1858–1860. The parts of Manchuria ceded to Russia are collectively known as Outer Manchuria or Russian Manchuria, which include present-day Amur Oblast, Primorsky Krai, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, the southern part of Khabarovsk Krai, and the eastern edge of Zabaykalsky Krai.

The name Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endonym "Manchu") of Japanese origin. The history of "Manchuria" (Manzhou) as a toponym in China is disputed, with some scholars believing it was never used while others believe it was by the late 19th century. The area was historically referred to by various names in the Qing dynasty such as Guandong (East of the Pass) or the Three Provinces referring to Fengtian (Liaoning), Heilongjiang, and Jilin. Manchuria as a geographical term was first used in the 18th or 19th centuries by the Japanese before spreading to Europe. The term was promoted by the Empire of Japan in support for the existence of its puppet state, Manchukuo. Although the toponym is still used, some scholars treat the term with caution or avoid it altogether due to its association with Japanese colonialism. The term is deprecated in China due to its association with Japanese imperialism and ethnic connotations. As a result, areas once considered part of Manchuria are simply referred to as the Northeast. The Three Provinces and the Northeast were also in concurrent use among the Japanese along with Manchuria until the Mukden incident of 1931.

The Manchus (Manchu: ᠮᠠᠨᠵᡠ, Möllendorff: manju; Chinese: 满洲、满族; pinyin: Mǎnzhōu, Mǎnzú; Wade–Giles: Man-chou, Man-tsu) are a Tungusic East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized ethnic minority in China and the people from whom Manchuria derives its name. The Later Jin (1616–1636) and Qing (1636–1912) dynasties of China were established and ruled by the Manchus, who are descended from the Jurchen people who earlier established the Jin dynasty (1115–1234) in northern China.

Manchus form the largest branch of the Tungusic peoples and are distributed throughout China, forming the country's fourth largest ethnic group. They inhabit 31 Chinese provincial regions. Liaoning has the largest population and Hebei, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Inner Mongolia and Beijing each have over 100,000 Manchu residents. About half of the population live in Liaoning and one-fifth in Hebei. Manchu autonomous counties in China include Xinbin, Xiuyan, Qinglong, Fengning, Yitong, Qingyuan, Weichang, Kuancheng, Benxi, Kuandian, Huanren, Fengcheng, Beizhen, including over 300 Manchu towns and townships.

The Jianzhou Jurchens (Chinese: 建州女真) were one of the three major groups of Jurchens as identified by the Ming dynasty. Although the geographic location of the Jianzhou Jurchens changed throughout history, during the 14th century they were located south of the Wild Jurchens and the Haixi Jurchens, and inhabited modern-day Liaoning and Jilin provinces in China. The Jianzhou Jurchens were known to possess an abundant supply of natural resources. They also possessed industrial secrets, particularly in processing ginseng and the dyeing of cloth. They were powerful due to their proximity to Ming trading towns such as Fushun, Kaiyuan, and Tieling in Liaodong, and to Manpojin camp near Korea.

The transition from Ming to Qing, also known as the Manchu conquest of China or Ming-Qing transition, was a decades-long period of conflict between the Qing dynasty, established by the Manchu Aisin Gioro clan in Manchuria, and the Ming dynasty in China proper and later in South China. Various other regional or temporary powers were also involved in this conflict, such as the short-lived Shun dynasty. In 1618, before the start of the Qing conquest, Nurhaci, the leader of the Aisin Gioro clan, commissioned a document titled the Seven Grievances, in which he listed seven complaints against the Ming, before launching a rebellion against them. Many of the grievances concerned conflicts with the Yehe, a major Manchu clan, and the Ming's favoritism toward the Yehe at the expense of other Manchu clans. Nurhaci's demand that the Ming pay tribute to address the Seven Grievances was effectively a declaration of war, as the Ming were unwilling to pay money to a former vassal. Shortly thereafter, Nurhaci began to rebel against the Ming in Liaoning, a region in southern Manchuria.

At the same time, the Ming dynasty was struggling to survive amid increasing fiscal troubles and peasant rebellions. On April 24, 1644, Beijing fell to a rebel army led by Li Zicheng, a former minor Ming official who became the leader of the peasant revolt. Zicheng then proclaimed the Shun dynasty. At the time of the city's fall, the last Ming emperor, the Chongzhen Emperor, hanged himself on a tree in the imperial garden outside the Forbidden City. As Li Zicheng advanced toward him with his army, the general Wu Sangui, tasked by the Ming with guarding one of the gates of the Great Wall, swore allegiance to the Manchus and allowed them to enter China. Li Zicheng was defeated at the battle of Shanhai Pass by the combined forces of Wu Sangui and the Manchu prince Dorgon. On June 6, the Manchus and Wu entered the capital and proclaimed the young Shunzhi Emperor as the new Emperor of China.

Xinghai Square (simplified Chinese: 星海广场; traditional Chinese: 星海廣場; pinyin: Xīnghǎi Guǎngchǎng), is a city square in Dalian, Liaoning, China. It is located to the north of Xinghai Bay. It covers a total area of 110 ha (270 acres), created entirely through land reclamation, making it the largest city square in the world. Its name literally means "the Sea of Stars".

The Yuwen (Chinese: 宇文; pinyin: Yǔwén < Eastern Han Chinese: *wa-mun < Old Chinese *waʔ-mən) is a Chinese compound surname which originated from a pre-state clan of Xianbei ethnicity of Xiongnu origin during the era of Sixteen Kingdoms in China, until its destruction by Former Yan's prince Murong Huang in 345. Among the eastern Xianbei clans that ranged from the central part of the present day Liaoning province and eastward, Yuwen clan was the largest, and was awarded the position of the leader of eastern Xianbei (東部大人) by Chinese rulers. A descendant of the Yuwen tribe, Yuwen Tai, established the Northern Zhou dynasty in the 6th century.

Yuwen were descendants of the nomadic Xiongnu who assimilated into the Xianbei after 89 CE and ruled the Kumo Xi and Khitan (both Mongolic peoples) before being defeated by Murong Huang in 344, upon which Yuwen separated from the Kumo Xi and Khitan. The language of the Yuwen is thought to be Turkic or a very distant branch of Mongolic.

Chinese temple architecture refer to a type of structures used as place of worship of Chinese Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, or Chinese folk religion, where people revere ethnic Chinese gods and ancestors. They can be classified as:

• miào (廟) or diàn (殿), simply means "temple" and mostly enshrines gods of the Chinese pantheon, such as the Dragon King, Tudigong or Matsu; or mythical or historical figures, such as Guandi or Shennong.
• cí (祠), cítáng (祠堂), zōngcí (宗祠) or zǔmiào (祖廟), referring to ancestral temples, mostly enshrining the ancestral gods of a family or clan.
• Taoist temples and monasteries: 觀 guàn or 道觀 dàoguàn; and
• Chinese Buddhist temples and monasteries: 寺 sì or 寺院 sìyuàn
• Temple of Confucius which usually functions as both temple and town school: 文廟 wénmiào or 孔廟 kŏngmiào.
• Temples of City God (城隍廟), which worships the patron God of a village, town or a city.
• Smaller household shrines or votive niche, such as the worship of Zaoshen and Caishen.

Gōng (宮), meaning "palace" is a term used for a templar complex of multiple buildings, while yuàn (院), meaning "institution," is a generic term meaning "sanctuary" or "shrine". Táng (堂) means courtyard or room, and ān (庵) means dome or nunnery.

Jilin is one of the three provinces of Northeast China. Its capital and largest city is Changchun. Jilin borders North Korea (Rasŏn, North Hamgyong, Ryanggang and Chagang) and Russia (Primorsky Krai) to the east, Heilongjiang to the north, Liaoning to the south, and Inner Mongolia to the west.

Along with the rest of Northeast China, Jilin underwent an early period of industrialization. However, Jilin's economy, characterized by heavy industry, has been facing economic difficulties with privatization. This prompted the central government to undertake a campaign called "Revitalize the Northeast". The region contains large deposits of oil shale.

Chifeng, also known as Ulankhad in Mongolian, is a prefecture-level city in Southeastern Inner Mongolia, People's Republic of China. It borders Xilin Gol League to the north and west, Tongliao to the northeast, Chaoyang (Liaoning) to the southeast and Chengde (Hebei) to the south. The city has a total administrative area of 90,275 km (34,855 sq mi) and as of the 2020 census, had a population of 4,035,967 inhabitants (4,341,245 in 2010). However, 1,175,391 of those residents lived in the built-up (or metro) area made of the 2 urban districts of Hongshan and Songshan, as Yuanbaoshan is not conurbated yet. However, a large part of Songshan district is still rural and Yuanbaoshan district a de facto separate town 27 kilometers away from the core district of Chifeng. The city was the administrative center of the previous Ju Ud League.

Sinŭiju (Korean: 신의주시; MR: Sinŭiju-si; IPA: [ɕinɰidzu ɕi]) is a city in North Korea which faces Dandong, Liaoning, China, across the international border of the Yalu River. It is the capital of North P'yŏngan province. Part of the city is included in the Sinŭiju Special Administrative Region, which was established in 2002 to experiment with introducing a market economy. In recent years the city has seen increasing tourism from China.

Dandong is a coastal prefecture-level city in southeastern Liaoning, in the northeastern region of China.

It is the largest Chinese border city, facing Sinuiju, North Korea, across the Yalu River, which demarcates the Sino-North Korean border. To the southwest of the city, the river flows into Korea Bay. Dandong has therefore had a dynamic history because of its strategic location for the northeast's rich natural resources and because of its convenient access to the ocean. It is designated as a major export production centre for the province, and is a port city connected by rail with Shenyang and Sinuiju. A significant amount of trade with North Korea flows through the city.