Zhanqiao Pier was a Qing dynasty project. In 1891, the government in Beijing decided to make the harbor at Jiaozhou Bay defensible against naval attack, and improving port facilities was part of that effort. The pier extended from the southern shore into the bay, providing a landing point for naval vessels and cargo. It was functional rather than ornamental -- a military wharf in a fishing settlement that barely registered on most maps. Six years later, in November 1897, the German Navy would seize the bay, and within a year the treaty port of Tsingtao would begin taking shape around this very pier. Zhongshan Road, which runs north from the waterfront behind Zhanqiao, was laid out in 1897 during the first months of the German colonial period.

The Huilan Pavilion -- whose name translates loosely as "Billowing Back and Forth Tower" -- was added to the end of the pier in 1930, long after the Germans had lost control of Qingdao. Its octagonal shape and upswept eaves gave the pier a distinctly Chinese character that contrasted with the European architecture climbing the hillside behind it. When Tsingtao Brewery, founded by German and British settlers in 1903, adopted the pavilion as its logo, the image of Zhanqiao became inseparable from the city's most famous export. The brewery, incidentally, uses spring water from nearby Mount Lao in its beer -- another thread connecting the landmarks of Qingdao into a single identity.

The area around Zhanqiao Pier concentrates much of what makes Qingdao distinctive. To the southeast sits Xiao Qingdao, the tiny island with its white lighthouse. Along the shore, the China Navy Museum displays decommissioned warships. Behind the pier, neighborhoods of German colonial architecture climb the hill toward St. Michael's Cathedral. At night, the coastline transforms: spotlights illuminate the nearby buildings, neon signs glow along the waterfront, and the Huilan Pavilion at the pier's end is lit against the dark water of Jiaozhou Bay. Walk to the end of the pier and you stand where Qingdao's history began -- a Qing dynasty wharf that predates the German colony, the Japanese occupation, and the Communist revolution, still extending into the same waters it was built to serve.