SHAN-HAI-KUAN

Pinyin Shanhaiguan, town in eastern Hopeh sheng (province), China. It lies on the coast of the Po Hai (Gulf of Chihli). Now a place of minor importance, Shan-hai-kuan until the 17th century was a strategic site that played a major role in the defense of the Peking area from the northeastern approach. Shan-hai-kuan (Pass Between the Mountains and the Sea) was the place at which the route from Peking into Manchuria (now known as the Northeast) passed through a narrow defile along the coast and where, at the same time, the Great Wall of China reached the coast. The town was known from the 6th century on as Lin-y-kuan, and, after the conquest of the northeastern part of Hopeh by the Khitan in the early 10th century, it became a county called Ch'ien-min, a name it retained until the 13th century. The name Shan-hai-kuan was first given it under the Ming dynasty (13681644). During the Manchu conquest at the end of Ming times, Shan-hai-kuan prevented the Manchu armies from overrunning the Peking area; and its capture by the Manchus in 1644 began the final Ming collapse. In 1737 it became a county seat. It lost this status in the 20th century, however, when the rise of nearby Ch'in-huang-tao took away much of its importance, while the Manchurian trade, which had previously passed through Shan-hai-kuan to Peking, was diverted to Dairen (now L-ta), in Liaoning province. Shan-hai-kuan's capture by Japanese forces operating in southern Manchuria (January 1932) placed that entire region under Japanese control and helped set the strategic stage for the establishment of the Japanese-sponsored puppet regime of Manchukuo. Pop. (mid-1980s est.) fewer than 10,000.