or Ta-lien formerly Lüda or Lü-ta Japanese and conventional Dairen
City (pop., 1999 est.: 2,000,944) and deepwater port on the Liaodong Peninsula , Liaoning province, China.
Leased to Russia in 1898, it was made a free port and terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railroad (1899). The Japanese occupied it during the Russo-Japanese War (1904), and the lease was transferred to Japan by treaty in 1905; Dalian again became a free port in 1906. Soviet troops captured the city in 1945, but by a Chinese-Soviet treaty it remained under Chinese sovereignty with preferential rights to the port for the U.S.S.R.; Soviet troops withdrew in 1955. It annexed neighbouring Lüshun in 1950. Industries include fishing, shipbuilding, oil refining, and the manufacture of locomotives, machine tools, textiles, and chemicals.