Qualla: Bohai Sea

Bohai Sea: Introduction

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NormanEinstein, CC BY-SA 3.0. From the air, the Bohai Sea looks deceptively calm -- a broad, shallow bowl of water wedged between three Chinese provinces and the municipality of Tianjin. With a mean depth of just 18 meters, it barely qualifies as a sea at all. Yet this 77,000-square-kilometer gulf has shaped the fate of dynasties. It is the innermost arm of the Yellow Sea, connected to the open Pacific only through the narrow Bohai Strait, and China declared it part of its inland waters in 1958. More than 210 million people live along its shores, making the strait one of the busiest sea lanes on earth.

Read more: Bohai Sea on Qualla

Image: NormanEinstein | CC BY-SA 3.0

Bohai Sea: Gateway of Empires

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit HaoLinFotos, CC BY-SA 4.0. For centuries, the Bohai Sea functioned as the front door to northern China. During the Tang Dynasty, it linked the imperial court to the Bohai Kingdom, a medieval state founded by the Mohe people in what is now northeast China. Trade and diplomatic missions between China, Korea,...

Read more: Bohai Sea on Qualla

Image: HaoLinFotos | CC BY-SA 4.0

Bohai Sea: A Sea Caught Between Empires

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit HMGiovanniV, CC BY-SA 4.0. The last decade of the 19th century turned the Bohai Sea into a theater of war. In 1894, during the First Sino-Japanese War, the Qing navy's Beiyang Fleet suffered a devastating defeat near the Yalu River approaches. Japanese forces then pushed into the Bohai region and captured ...

Read more: Bohai Sea on Qualla

Image: HMGiovanniV | CC BY-SA 4.0

Bohai Sea: Three Bays and a Strait

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kamakura, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Bohai Sea divides neatly into three major bays: Laizhou Bay to the south, Bohai Bay to the west, and Liaodong Bay reaching north toward Manchuria. The Yellow River empties into Laizhou Bay, carrying sediment that has been reshaping the coastline for millennia. The Bohai Strai...

Read more: Bohai Sea on Qualla

Image: Kamakura | CC BY-SA 3.0

Bohai Sea: Oil Beneath the Waves

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Charlie fong, CC BY-SA 4.0. Beneath the shallow seabed lie some of China's most productive offshore oil reserves. The Shengli Field, exploited since the 1960s, still produces roughly half a million barrels per day, though output is declining. The China National Offshore Oil Corporation was largely created t...

Read more: Bohai Sea on Qualla

Image: Charlie fong | CC BY-SA 4.0

Bohai Sea: The Tunnel That May Never Come

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wen2li3 (talk), CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1992, officials in the port city of Yantai first proposed a tunnel beneath the Bohai Strait to connect the Shandong and Liaodong peninsulas. The idea resurfaced in 2011 with an announced plan for a 106-kilometer road and rail tunnel -- twice the length of the English Channel T...

Read more: Bohai Sea on Qualla

Image: Wen2li3 (talk) | CC BY-SA 4.0