Old Town (German Quarter)

Qingdao was a German concession from 1898 to 1914 — the only formal German colonial possession in East Asia outside the Pacific islands — and the surviving architecture from that period is the most concentrated set of pre-1914 German colonial buildings outside Germany itself. The 6-square-kilometre old town is a substantively preserved German residential and commercial quarter.

St. Michael's Cathedral (Sankt-Michael-Kathedrale), completed 1934 in neo-Romanesque style, is the visual landmark — twin 60-metre towers, granite walls, and a substantial interior nave that remains in working religious use. The cathedral hosts daily mass.

The Governor's Mansion (Qingdao Yingbin Hall), completed 1907 in Bauhaus-anticipating style, was the German governor's official residence. The mansion has been used as the secondary residence for various senior Chinese officials since 1949 (Mao stayed there 17 times, Soviet leader Khrushchev visited in 1958) and is now open as a museum.

The Tsingtao Brewery, founded 1903 by German and British investors, is the largest beer brand in mainland China and the second-largest beer producer in Asia. The original brewery building survives on its original site at the eastern end of the old town and operates as a working museum and tasting hall. The plastic-bag-of-draft-beer culture — Qingdao residents buying draft beer in plastic bags to drink on the street or at home — is the canonical local custom.

The German concession's street layout, irregular and built into the coastal hill geometry, contrasts with the regular grids of typical Chinese coastal cities and gives the old town its characteristic walkability.