As clearly stipulated in the newly-approved Qingdao Overall National Territory Spatial Planning (2021-2035), Qingdao is an important coastal central city, a nationally famous historic and cultural city, a modern marine city as well as an international comprehensive transportation hub city in China.

As Qingdao’s first overall national territory spatial planning that combines multiple aspects, the Qingdao Overall Planning not only stipulates targets Qingdao needs to fulfill by 2035 such as areas concerning basic farmland protection, ecological conservation redline and urban development boundary, but also clarifies the important role of Qingdao as a pivot in making domestic and international circulations smooth, and calls on Qingdao to engage deeply in the high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, thus advancing the building of the China-SCO Local Economic and Trade Cooperation Demonstration Zone and facilitating coordinated development between urban clusters on Shandong Peninsula.

According to the Overall Planning, Qingdao will move faster to build a system of urban development characterized by regional coordination and urban-rural integration, promote interconnection across the east and the west in the central urban area, push ahead with the port-industry-city integration in the West Coast New Area and facilitate urban development across Jiaozhou Bay in an intensive and compact manner. Furthermore, Qingdao will further consolidate its status as an international aviation hub, improve the capacity of modern services such as international shipping, put up internal and external channels to reach out in many directions and achieve multimode transport, and build a comprehensive transportation system that is safe, convenient, green and low-carbon.  (Wang Bingjie)