Dandong is a city in the Liaoning province, China. It is on the border between China and North Korea, marked by the Yalu River. Also at this point, the river flows into Korea Bay. The size of the administrative city is 14,910 square kilometers; the urban city is 563 square kilometers in size and has 643,000 inhabitants. The administrative city covers around 2.4 million inhabitants as of 2001.
The city is across the river from Sinŭiju, North Korea. The two cities are connected by the Sino-Korea Friendship Bridge (also called the China-Korea Friendship Bridge). Another major landmark is Hushan Great Wall, which marks the eastern end of the start of the Ming Dynasty's extension to the Great Wall. Other interesting tourist spots include: a museum dedicated to the "War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea" (also known as the Korean War) and Jinjiang mountain that is now the city's biggest park, but used to be a Chinese army lookout.
Maps and artifacts suggest that the area has been settled since the Zhou Dynasty. The area became known as Andong, county in 1876. Andong, which stands for pacifying the east, was so named to reflect the power projection that China had over Korea at the time. It was occupied by Japan after the start of the first Sino-Japanese War in 1894. During the Manchukuo era it was the capital of Andong Province, one of the fourteen provinces established by Manchukuo. It adopted its present name on January 20, 1965, to avoid connotation of its previous name, which was considered imperialistic by some.
