University. History Ancient times Human settlement in the area dates back 6,000 years. The Dongyi nationality, one of the important origins of the Chinese nation, lived here and created the Dawenkou, Longshan and Dongyeshi cultures. In the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (770 B.C. – 256 B.C.), the town of Jimo was established, which was then the second-largest one in the Shandong region. The area in which Qingdao is located today was named Jiao'ao () when it was administered by the Qing Dynasty on 14 June 1891. German and Japanese occupations In 1891, the Qing Empire decided to make coastal Tsingtao (then known as "Jiao'ao") a defense base against naval attacks and began to improve its fortifications. Imperial German naval officials observed and reported on this activity during a formal survey of Jiaozhou Bay in May 1897. Subsequently, German troops seized and occupied the fortification. The preindustrial, waning Qing Empire was forced to concede the area to Germany the following year, and the Kiautschou Bay concession, as it became known, existed from 1898 to 1914 (Li 2005, p. 81). With an area of , it was located in the imperial province of Shandong (alternately romanized as Shantung or Shan-tung) on the southern coast of the Shandong Peninsula in northern China. Jiaozhou was alternatively romanized as Kiaochow, Kiauchau, or Kiao-Chau in English, and Kiautschou in German; Qingdao was its administrative center. "The so-called Marktstrasse (Market Street) was nothing more than the old main street of the Chinese village of Tsingtao, and the buildings lining it were the former homes of fishermen and farmers. Having sold their property, they resettled their homes and fields in the villages further east." Upon gaining control of the area, the Germans outfitted the impoverished fishing village of Tsingtao (Qingdao) with wide streets, solid housing areas, government buildings, electrification throughout, a sewer system and a safe drinking water supply, a rarity in large parts of Asia at that time and later. The area had the highest school density and the highest per capita student enrollment in all of China, with primary, secondary and vocational schools funded by the Imperial German treasury and Protestant and Roman Catholic missions. Commercial interests established the Germania Brewery in 1903, which later became the world-famous Tsingtao Brewery. German cultural and commercial influences extended to other areas of Shandong Province, including the establishment of diverse commercial enterprises. Identified by the German authorities as a strategically