The name of Tianjin means Emperor’s Port. When Tianjin became a city in 1404, it was already serving as a key hub linking the economic activities between the north and the south of China.

Tianjin is among the first Chinese cities that gained access to the modern western civilizations. After it was opened as a trading port in 1860, Tianjin became a pioneer in the north of China in opening and a base of the Westernization Movement in modern China, blazed the trail in many domains of social development in the modern history of China, and enjoyed the first positions in over 100 realms in China such as military modernization, railway construction, telegraph, telephone, post, mining, modern education and administration of justice. Tianjin was also the second largest industrial and commercial city as well as the largest financial and trade center in the north of China at that time.