TIEN-TSIN, tyen'tsin'; properly T'IEN TSIN (Heaven's Ford). A city and treaty port of the Province of Chihli. China, situ ated on the eastern edge of the Great. Plain, in latitude 39° 10' N., longitude 117° 43' E., on the right bank of the Pei-ho (Alap: China, E 4). It is at the junction of the Pei-ho with the Grand Canal, which, prior to the silting of the canal, afforded easy inland communication with many of the great cities of the country and bore to Tientsin the great fleets of junks engaged in the transportation from the south of the 'tribute-rice' for the provisioning of Peking. It is 70 miles by water from the sea, and about 70 southeast of Peking. It is in rail communication with Peking, the Kai-ping coal mines, Shan hai-kwan, and Manchuria, and with Pao-ting-fu, and thence southward through Ching-ting with Hankow. The city, which was only a wei or military station until 1732, is comparatively small. Its wells of brick and stone are 30 feet high, nearly four miles in circuit, and pierced with four gates surmounted with towers. The houses are generally of brick or pressed mud, and only one story high. Like those of most Chinese cities, the streets are filthy and ill-kept. The suburbs are very large, and in them is car ried on most of the trade. The population is 1,000,000. In 1860 Tientsin was opened by treaty to foreign residence and trade. The For eign Settlement—known as Tsu-chu-lin, or 'Red Bamboo Grove'—is also situated on the right bank of the river and about miles below the city, but within the line of eircumvallation known as 'San-ko-lin-sin's Folly.' It is laid out in foreign style, has a jetty or pier and a fine build or esplanade along the river bank, good, well-kept streets, fine dwellings and warehouses, gas, electric lights, and many good public build ings, such as the custom house and the town hall, known as Gordon Hall. There are schools, hospitals, club houses, and the naval school estab lished by Li Hung Chang, and within a short distance are two well-equipped arsenals. The government of the settlement is vested in a municipal council elected by and composed of the land-renters.
Tientsin has no factories. Its principal manu factures are straw braid and sam-shu, and cured skins and tobacco, There is an immense trade in salt.
In 190] the total value of the trade of the port, as shown by the Imperial Maritime Customs Re ports, was $33,370,000, of which $20.450,000 rep resented direct foreign imports. The principal imports are woolens, drills, sheetings, shirt ings, jeans, twills, seaweed, sugar, rice. grain, kerosene oil, tea, opium, steel, and salt (the last is a Government monopoly). The articles of export are sam-shu, straw braid, furs, goat skins, camels' wool, coal, wood, tobacco, fruit. and rhubarb. Nearly all the tea consumed in Asiatic Russia is shipped from the south to Tientsin, from which point it goes overland by caravans to Kalgan, and thence to Siberian ports.
In 1853 Tientsin was besieged by a strong force of Taiping rebels on their way to Peking, hut they were defeated by the Mongol general San-ko lin-sin and driven off. In 1360 it was taken by the Anglo-French punitive expedition on its way to Peking. While Li Hung Chang was Viceroy of Chihli, from 1870 to 1895, he made his headquarters at Tien-tsin, and in consequence the city was the centre of much political interest. Its importance in this respect greatly declined when Li was removed from office after the dis astrous war with Japan in 1894-95. During the Boxer uprising in 1900 the foreign settlement suffered from the besieging Boxers, and the city from the relieving forces of the Allies. The city held out until the severe fighting of July 13th 14th, during which the Allies lost in killed and wounded between 800 and 900, the United States contingent, in proportion to its number, suffer ing most. The city is connected with the rest of the world by cable, and with the British Legation in Peking by the Marconi wireless system. Ow ing to the importance of the foreign business interests centred here, and the proximity of the town to Peking, the Viceroy of the province, whose seat is at Pao-ting-fu, spends a large por tion of the year here. As the river freezes over in winter, Tientsin is cut off from the outer world from about November to April, hut the for eign admirals always agree to have at least one gunboat stationed off the bund during that pe riod.