Tianjin

Tianjin is a city in China. It is close to the sea.

A river called the Haihe flows through the city.

Tianjin is one of China's most important cities and one of its main ports, Universalis says. It is one of four cities that China's national government runs directly, like a province. The others are Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing.

Tianjin's own statistics bureau counted about 13.63 million permanent residents in all of Tianjin at the end of 2025, a preliminary figure. About 11.75 million of them lived in towns and cities and about 1.88 million in the countryside.

Tianjin Municipal Bureau of Statistics, 2025 statistical bulletin (dated 23 March 2026; all figures preliminary): permanent residents at the end of 2025 1,363万 (about 13.63 million): 1,175万 urban and 188万 rural, an urbanization rate of 86.21%. National Bureau of Statistics census (via City Population): Tianjin municipality 9,848,731 (2000), 12,938,693 (2010), 13,866,009 (2020).

Universalis: one of China's most important cities and one of its main ports, and one of the four special municipalities (with Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing) placed directly under the central government like a province. The status was removed in 1958, when Tianjin became the capital of Hebei province until 1967; it then regained it and its territory was enlarged, on the coast of the Bohai gulf.

Look at the lights! The buildings glow orange under a dark blue sky.

A tall clock tower stands in the middle. The river shines in front.

This photo shows Jinwan Plaza, a building complex in Tianjin's Heping District, on 9 January 2011, as the sky turns dark blue. Its buildings, with red roofs, rows of windows and arches, glow with orange lights. A tall clock tower rises in the middle, and a red sign glows on one building.

In front, the wide river reflects the lights, and a modern tower stands behind the old-style buildings.

Commons: '炫彩津门6Tianjin Jinwan Plaza', 9 January 2011, by kele_jb1984 (Flickr), CC BY-SA 2.0, uploaded by the Flickr upload bot; listed among the featured pictures on the Chinese Wikipedia. Wikidata: Jinwan Plaza (Q10381230), a building complex in Heping, Tianjin.

In the picture: a long row of floodlit buildings with steep, windowed roofs and arcades, a clock tower near the middle, a lit red sign, a modern office tower behind and a company sign on another; the river in front reflects the lights. Wikidata places Tianjin railway station (opened 5 October 1888) about 0.3 km north of the plaza.

Tianjin became a city of factories. They made cars, bicycles and tractors.

By the sea, people collected salt from shallow pools.

In the 1950s, a large group of factories was built in Tianjin, making it one of China's great industrial cities, Universalis says. Its article, whose newest figures are from 2002, describes textile mills processing cotton from the farmland around Tianjin, salt pans along the coast feeding chemical factories at Dagu and Tanggu, and metalworking as the biggest industry, with a steelworks and factories for cars, tractors, bicycles and diesel engines. Tianjin was also chosen to host some events of the 2008 Olympic Games.

Universalis: an important industrial complex set up in the 1950s made Tianjin one of China's largest industrial cities. Large textile mills process cotton, of which Tianjin's hinterland is one of China's main producers; the coastal salt pans feed a chemical-industry complex at Dagu and Tanggu; metallurgy is the leading industrial sector, with a steelworks, equipment for the chemical and textile industries, and factories for cars, tractors, cycles and diesel engines. Despite its closeness to Beijing, Tianjin has kept a character of its own, linked to its past as a working city; it was selected to host events during the 2008 Olympic Games.

The Universalis article's newest figures are from 2002, so this picture of industry is not a current one.