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Harbin is the capital of Heilongjiang, China, and the largest city of the province—as well as the second largest urban area population (after Shenyang, Liaoning province) and the largest metropolitan population (urban and rural regions together) in Northeast China. Harbin has direct jurisdiction over nine metropolitan districts, two county-level cities, and seven counties. It is the eighth most populous Chinese city according to the 2020 census. The built-up area of Harbin (which consists of all districts except Shuangcheng and Acheng) has 5,841,929 inhabitants, while the total metropolitan population is up to 10,009,854, making it one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. Harbin serves as a key political, economic, scientific, cultural, and communications hub in Northeast China, as well as an important industrial base of the nation.
Several different etymologies have been offered for the city's name. The city government says the name means "swan" in the Jurchen language, and other sources say that it comes from a Manchu language word meaning "a place for drying ". The settlement grew from a small rural fishing village on the Songhua River to become one of the largest cities in Northeast China. Founded in 1898 with the coming of the Russian Empire-built Chinese Eastern Railway, the city first prospered as a settlement inhabited by an overwhelming majority of immigrants from the Russian Empire. In the 1920s the city was considered China's fashion capital, since new designs from Paris and Moscow reached here first before arriving in Shanghai. From 1932 until 1945, Harbin was the largest city in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. Well known for its historical Russian legacy and architecture, the city is famed for its European influence and serves as an important gateway in Sino-Russian trade today.
Harbin is one of the top 50 cities and metropolitan areas in the world by Nature Index output. The city hosts several major universities in Northeast China, including Harbin Engineering University, Harbin Medical University, Northeast Agricultural University, Harbin University of Science and Technology, Harbin Normal University, Northeast Forestry University, and Heilongjiang University. Notably, Harbin Institute of Technology is consistently ranked as one of the best universities in the world for engineering.
Harbin was voted "China Top Tourist city" by the China National Tourism Administration in 2004. Though known for its bitterly cold seasons, Harbin is heralded as the Ice City () for its winter tourism and recreations, especially the ice sculpture festival. The city has hosted the 1996 Winter Asian Games, the 2009 Winter Universiade, and the 2025 Asian Winter Games.
After the Mongol conquest of the Jin Empire (1211–1234), Huining Prefecture was abandoned. In the 17th century, the Manchus used building materials from Huining Prefecture to construct their new stronghold in Acheng District. The region of Harbin remained largely rural until the 19th century, by the end of which over ten villages and about 30,000 people arrived in the city's present-day urban districts.
The city was intended as a showcase for Russian imperialism in Asia, and the American scholar Simon Karlinsky, who was born in Harbin in 1924 to a Russian-Jewish family, wrote that in Harbin "the buildings, boulevards, and parks were planned—well before the October Revolution—by distinguished Russian architects and also by Swiss and Italian town planners", giving the city a very European appearance. Starting in the late 19th century, a mass influx of Han Chinese arrived and, taking advantage of the rich soils, founded farms that soon turned Manchuria into the "breadbasket of China". Others went to work in the mines and factories, making the northeast one of the first regions of China to industrialize. Harbin became one of the main points from which food and industrial products were shipped out of Manchuria. A sign of Harbin's wealth was the theatre that was established during its first decade. In 1907 the play K zvezdam by Leonid Andreyev premiered there.
During the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05), Russia used Harbin as its base for military operations in Manchuria. Following Russia's defeat, its influence declined. Several thousand nationals from 33 countries, including the United States, Germany, and France, moved to Harbin. Sixteen countries established consulates to serve their nationals, who established several hundred industrial, commercial, and banking companies. Churches were rebuilt for Russian Orthodox, Lutheran/German Protestant, and Polish Catholic Christians. Chinese capitalists also established businesses, especially in brewing, food, and textiles, making Harbin the economic hub of northeastern China and an international metropolis.
The rapid growth of the city challenged the public healthcare system. The worst-ever recorded outbreak of pneumonic plague spread to Harbin through the Trans-Manchurian railway from the border trade port of Manzhouli. The plague lasted from late autumn of 1910 to spring 1911 and killed 1,500 Harbin residents (mostly ethnic Chinese), or about five percent of its population at the time. This turned out to be the beginning of the large so-called Manchurian plague pandemic, which ultimately claimed 60,000 victims. In the winter of 1910, Dr. Wu Lien-teh (later the founder of Harbin Medical University) was given instructions from the Foreign Office in Peking (Beijing) to travel to Harbin to investigate the plague. Dr. Wu asked for imperial sanction to cremate plague victims, which became the turning point for the epidemic. The suppression of this plague pandemic changed medical progress in China. Bronze statues of Dr. Wu Lien-teh were built at Harbin Medical University to commemorate his contributions in promoting public health, preventive medicine, and medical education.
The first generation of Harbin Russians was composed of the railroad builders and employees who had moved to Harbin to work for the Chinese Eastern Railway. At the time Harbin was not yet an established city, having been almost built from scratch by the early settlers. Houses were constructed, furniture and personal items were brought in from Russia. After the Manchurian plague epidemic, Harbin's population continued to increase sharply, especially within the Chinese Eastern Railway Zone. In 1913 the Chinese Eastern Railway census showed its ethnic composition as: Russians – 34,313, Chinese (including Han Chinese, Manchus, etc.) – 23,537, Jews – 5,032, Polish people – 2556, Japanese – 696, Germans – 564, Tatars – 234, Latvians – 218, Georgians – 183, Estonians – 172, Lithuanians – 142, Armenians – 124; there were also Crimean Karaites, Ukrainians, Bashkirs, and some Western Europeans. In total, there were 68,549 citizens of 53 nationalities, speaking 45 languages. Research shows that only 11.5 percent of all residents were born in Harbin.Bakich, Olga Mikhailovna, "Emigre Identity: The Case of Harbin", The South Atlantic Quarterly, Vol.99, No.1 (2000): 51–73. By 1917, Harbin's population exceeded 100,000, with over 40,000 of them being ethnic Russians.
Immediately after the February Revolution of 1917, the Harbin Soviet was organized. It sought to seize control over the Chinese Eastern Railway and to defend Russian citizens in Manchuria. The Bolsheviks Martemyan Ryutin was the chairman of the Harbin Soviet.
After Russia's Great October Socialist Revolution in November 1917, the new Soviet government in Russia recognized the Harbin Soviet as its representation in Manchuria and placed Russian citizens in Manchuria under its protection. Subsequently, the Harbin Soviet requested recognition of the local taotai. On 12 December 1917, Bolsheviks seized control over the Harbin Soviet, pressuring Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries to leave the body. Through Golos Truda the Harbin Soviet declared itself as the government of the area. On 18 December 1917, the Harbin Soviet dismissed the Chinese Eastern Railway administrator Dmitry Horvat and directed its militia to seize control of the railway installations. The Bolshevik militia was soon confronted by Chinese troops and Horvat loyalists, who disarmed and deported some 1,560 Bolshevik fighters. Ryutin went underground.
In 1920 more than 100,000 defeated Russian White Guards and refugees retreated to Harbin, which became a major center of White movement émigrés and the largest Russian community outside the Soviet Union. Karlinsky noted that a major difference with the Russian émigrés who arrived in Harbin was: "Unlike the Russian émigrés who went to Paris or Prague or even to Shanghai, the new residents of Harbin were not a minority surrounded by a foreign population. They found themselves instead in an almost totally Russian city, populated mainly by people with roots in the south of European Russia." The city had a Russian school system, as well as publishers of Russian-language newspapers and journals. The Russian Harbintsy community numbered around 120,000 at its peak in the early 1920s.
The Harbin Institute of Technology was established in 1920 as the Harbin Sino-Russian School for Industry to educate railway engineers via a Russian method of instruction. Students could select from two majors at the time: Railway Construction or Electric Mechanic Engineering. On 2 April 1922, the school was renamed the Sino-Russian Industrial University. The original two majors eventually developed into two major departments: the Railway Construction Department and the Electric Engineering Department. Between 1925 and 1928 the university's rector was Leonid Ustrugov, the Russian Deputy Minister of Railways under Nicholas II before the Russian Revolution. He served as the Minister of Railways under Admiral Kolchak's government and was a key figure in the development of the Chinese Eastern Railway.
The Russian community in Harbin made it their mission to preserve the pre-revolutionary culture of Russia. The city had numerous Russian language newspapers, journals, libraries, theatres, and two opera companies. One of the famous Russian poets in Harbin was Valery Pereleshin, who started publishing his intensely Homosexuality poetry in 1937 and was also one of the few Russian writers in Harbin who learned Mandarin. The subject of Pereleshin's poetry caused problems with the Russian Fascist Party and led Pereleshin to leave for Shanghai, and ultimately to the United States. Not all of the Russian newspapers were of high quality, with Karlinsky calling Nash put'
In the early 1920s, according to Chinese scholars' recent studies, over 20,000 Jews lived in Harbin.Patrick Fuliang Shan, "'A Proud and Creative Jewish Community:' The Harbin Diaspora, Jewish Memory and Sino-Israeli Relations", American Review of China Studies, Fall 2008, pp. 15–29. After 1919, Dr. Abraham Kaufman played a leading role in Harbin's large Russian Jewish community. The Republic of China discontinued diplomatic relations with the Russian Republic in 1920, leaving many Russians stateless. When the Chinese Eastern Railway and government in Beijing announced in 1924 that they agreed the railroad would employ only Russian or Chinese nationals, the émigrés were forced to declare their ethnic and political allegiances. Most accepted Soviet citizenship.
The Chinese warlord Zhang Xueliang, the "Young Marshal", seized the Chinese Eastern Railway in 1929. The Soviet military force quickly put an end to the crisis and forced the Kuomintang to accept the restoration of joint Soviet-Chinese administration of the railway.
With the establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo, the so-called "pacification of Manchukuo" began as volunteer armies continued to fight the Japanese. Harbin became a major operations base for the infamous medical experimenters of Unit 731, who killed people of all ages and ethnicities. These units were known collectively as the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwantung Army.Yuki Tanaka, Hidden Horrors, 1996, p. 136. The main facility of Unit 731 was built in 1935 at Pingfang District, approximately south of Harbin's urban area at that time. Between 3,000 and 12,000 citizens, including men, women, and children,David C. Rapoport. "Terrorism and Weapons of the Apocalypse". In James M. Ludes, Henry Sokolski (eds.), Twenty-First Century Weapons Proliferation: Are We Ready? Routledge, 2001. pp. 19, 29.Khabarovsk War Crime Trials. Materials on the Trial of Former Servicemen of the Japanese Army Charged with Manufacturing and Employing Biological Weapons, Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1950. p. 117.—from which around 600 every year were provided by the KempeitaiYuki Tanaka, Hidden Horrors, Westviewpress, 1996, p. 138.—died during the human experiments conducted by Unit 731 at the camp based in Pingfang alone, which does not include victims from other medical experimentation sites. Almost 70 percent of the victims who died in the Pingfang camp were Chinese people, including both civilians and military. Close to 30 percent of the victims were Russian. The Russian Fascist Party had the task of capturing "unreliable" Russians living in Harbin to hand over to Unit 731 to serve as the unwilling subjects of the gruesome experiments.Bisher, Jamie White Terror: Cossack Warlords of the Trans-Siberian, London: Routledge, 2005 p.305.
Some others were Southeast Asians and Pacific Islanders from the colonies of the Empire of Japan, and a small number were the prisoners of war from the Allies of World War II (although many more Allied POWs were victims at other unit sites). Prisoners of war were subjected to vivisection without anesthesia after being infected with various diseases. Other prisoners were inoculated with diseases, disguised as vaccinations, to study the effects. Unit 731 and its affiliated units (Unit 1644 and Unit 100 among others) were involved in research, development, and experimental deployment of epidemic-creating biowarfare weapons for assaults against the Chinese populace (both civilian and military) throughout World War II. Human targets were also used for testing flame throwers and grenades, placed at various distances and in different positions. Victims were also tied to stakes and used as targets to test germ warfare, chemical weapons, and explosive .Monchinski, Tony (2008). Critical Pedagogy and the Everyday Classroom. Volumen 3 de Explorations of Educational Purpose. Springer, p. 57. .Neuman, William Lawrence (2008). Understanding Research. Pearson/Allyn and Bacon, p. 65. .
Twelve Unit 731 members were found guilty in the Khabarovsk War Crime Trials but later repatriated. Others received secret immunity by the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, Douglas MacArthur, before the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal in exchange for their biological warfare work in the Cold War for the American Forces.Hal Gold, Unit 731 Testimony, 2003, p. 109.
Chinese revolutionaries including Zhao Shangzhi, Yang Jingyu, Li Zhaolin, Zhao Yiman continued to struggle against the Japanese in Harbin and its administrative area, commanding the main anti-Japanese guerrilla army-Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army—which was originally organized by the Manchurian branch of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The army was supported by the Comintern after the CCP Manchurian Provincial Committee was dissolved in 1936.
Under the Manchukuo régime and Japanese occupation, Harbin Russians had a difficult time. In 1935 the Soviet Union sold the Chinese Eastern Railway (KVZhD) to the Japanese, and many Russian émigrés left Harbin (48,133 of them were arrested during the Soviet Great Purge between 1936 and 1938 as "Japanese spies"These statistics, based on research work by A. B. Roginsky and O. A. Gorlanov of Memorial's Research and Information Centre, were provided to the author in May 2002.). Most departing Russians returned to the Soviet Union, but a substantial number moved south to Shanghai or emigrated to the United States and Australia. By the end of the 1930s, the Russian population of Harbin had dropped to around 30,000.
Many of Harbin's Jews (13,000 in 1929) fled after the Japanese occupation, as the Japanese associated closely with militant anti-Soviet Russian Fascists, whose ideology of anti-Bolshevism and nationalism was laced with virulent anti-Semitism.Stephan, John J. 1978. The Russian Fascists: Tragedy and Farce in Exile 192545. London: Hamish Hamilton. The Kwantung Army-sponsored and financed the Russian Fascist Party, which after 1932 started to play an oversized role in Harbin's Russian community as its thugs began to harass and sometimes kill those opposed to it. Most Jews left for Shanghai, Tianjin, and the British Mandate of Palestine. In the late 1930s, some German Jews fleeing the Nazis moved to Harbin. Japanese officials later facilitated Jewish emigration to several cities in western Japan, notably Kobe, which came to have Japan's largest synagogue.
Harbin was one of the key construction cities of China during the First Five-Year Plan period from 1951 to 1956. Thirteen of the 156 key construction projects were aid-constructed by the Soviet Union in Harbin. This project made Harbin an important industrial base of China. During the Great Leap Forward from 1958 to 1961, Harbin experienced a very tortuous development course as several Sino-Soviet contracts were cancelled by the Soviet Union.Chinese Government's Official Web Portal (English). China: a country with 5,000-year-long civilization . retrieved 2011-09-03. During the Cultural Revolution, many foreign and Christian architectures were demolished. On 23 August 1966, Red Guards stormed into St. Nicholas Cathedral and burned its icons on the streets while chanting xenophobic slogans before destroying the church. As the normal economic and social orders were seriously disrupted, Harbin's economy also suffered serious setbacks—the main reasons being the deteriorating Soviet ties and the escalation of the Vietnam War, which made China concerned of a possible nuclear attack. Mao Zedong ordered an evacuation of military and other key state enterprises from the northeastern frontier, with Harbin being the core zone of this region bordering the Soviet Union. During this Third Front Development era of China, several major factories of Harbin were relocated to southwestern provinces including Gansu, Sichuan, Hunan, and Guizhou, where they would be strategically secure in the event of a possible war. Some major universities of China were also moved out of Harbin, including Harbin Military Academy of Engineering (predecessor of Changsha's National University of Defense Technology) and Harbin Institute of Technology (moved to Chongqing in 1969 and relocated to Harbin in 1973).
National economy and social service have obtained significant achievements since the reform and opening up first introduced in 1979. Harbin holds the China Harbin International Economic and Trade Fair each year since 1990. Harbin once housed one of the largest Jewish communities in the Far East before World War II. It reached its peak in the mid-1920s when 25,000 European Jews lived in the city. Among them were the parents of Ehud Olmert, the former Prime Minister of Israel. In 2004, Olmert came to Harbin with an Israeli trade delegation to visit the grave of his grandfather in Huang Shan Jewish Cemetery, which had over 500 Jewish graves identified.
On 5 October 1984, Harbin was designated a sub-provincial city by the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee. The eight counties of Harbin originally formed part of Songhuajiang Prefecture whose seat was practically located inside the urban area of Harbin since 1972. The prefecture was officially merged into Harbin city on 11 August 1996, increasing Harbin's total population to 9.47 million.
From late 1990s to early 2000s, Harbin, as a major industrial city with its high density of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), was disproportionately affected by the state government's push to close unprofitable industries. Mass layoffs from SOEs, widely known in China as Xiagang (下岗: step down from the post), had led to widespread unemployment, severe economic hardship and profound social disruption to the majority of city's residents.
Harbin hosted the third Asian Winter Games in 1996. World of Chinese Stamps and Philatelic Items In 2009, Harbin held the XXIV Winter Universiade.
A memorial hall honoring Koreans nationalist and independence activist Ahn Jung-geun was unveiled at Harbin Railway Station on 19 January 2014. Ahn assassinated four-time Prime Minister of Japan and former Resident-General of Korea Itō Hirobumi at No.1 platform of Harbin Railway Station on 26 October 1909, as Korea on the verge of annexation by Japan after the signing of the Eulsa Treaty. South Korean President Park Geun-Hye raised an idea of erecting a monument for Ahn while meeting with Chinese Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping during a visit to China in June 2013. After that China began to build a memorial hall honoring Ahn at Harbin Railway Station. As the hall was unveiled on 19 January 2014, the Japanese side soon lodged protest with China over the construction of Ahn's memorial hall.
To mitigate impacts of climate change, urban planning in Harbin has made use of sponge city concepts, including the Qunli stormwater park which collects, filters, and stores rainwater while conserving natural habitat.9780300266900, Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300266900
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The chernozem soil in Harbin is one of the most nutrient rich in all of China, making it valuable for cultivating food and textile-related crops. As a result, Harbin is China's base for the production of commodity grain and an ideal location for setting up agricultural businesses.
Harbin also has industries such as light industry, textile, medicine, food, aircraft, automobile, metallurgy, electronics, building materials, and chemicals that help to form a fairly comprehensive industrial system. Several major corporations are based in the city. Harbin Electric, Harbin Aircraft Industry Group and Northeast Light Alloy Processing Factory are some of key enterprises. Power manufacturing is a main industry in Harbin; hydro and thermal power equipment manufactured here makes up one-third of the total installed capacity in China. According to Platts, in 2009-10 Harbin Electric was the second largest manufacturer of steam turbines by worldwide market share, tying Dongfang Electric and slightly behind Shanghai Electric. Harbin Pharmaceutical Group, which mainly focus on research, development, manufacture and sale of medical products, is China's second-biggest drug maker by market value.
Harbin International Trade and Economic Fair has been held annually since 1990. This investment and trade fair cumulatively attracting more than 1.9 million exhibitors and visitors from more than 80 countries and regions to attend, resulting over US$100 billion contract volume concluded according to the statistics of 2013. Harbin is among major destinations of FDI in Northeast China, with utilized FDI totaling US$980 million in 2013. After the 18th regular meeting between Sino-Russian Prime Ministers between Li Keqiang and Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev in October 2013, two sides come to make an agreement that the Harbin International Trade and Economic Fair will be renamed "China-Russia EXPO" and be co-sponsored by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, Heilongjiang Provincial government, the Russian Ministry of Economic Development and Russia's Ministry of Trade and Industry.
In the financial sector, Longjiang Bank and Harbin Bank are some of the largest banks in Northeast China, with headquarters in Harbin. The latter ranks fourth by competitiveness among Chinese city commercial banks in 2011.
In commerce, there is Qiulin Group, which owns Harbin's largest department store.
Songbei Economic Development Zone is located in Songbei District of Harbin. The zone has a planned area of 5.53 square kilometers. Electronics assembly & manufacturing, food and beverage processing are the encouraged industries in the zone. Many regional and provincial headquarters of large enterprises such as the China Datang Corporation, China Netcom and China Telecom have joined in this district, preliminary constituting the economy concentration zone of the local headquarters. Regional Scientific research centers including Harbin Science and Technology Innovation Center and Harbin International Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Center are also located in this development zone. Profit from these major research institutes, Harbin ranked ninth among 50 major Chinese cities in scientific and technological innovation ability in scientific and technological competitiveness ranking in 2006, as well as ranking sixth among Chinese cities in the amount of scientific and technological achievements.
The demographic profile for the Harbin metropolitan area in general is relatively old: 10.46 percent are under the age of 14, while 14.65 percent are over 65. Harbin has a higher percentage of males (50.02 percent) than females (49.98 percent). Harbin currently has a lower birth rate than other parts of China, with 6.95 births per 1,000 inhabitants, compared to the Chinese average of 12.13 births.
| +Ethnic groups in Harbin, 2020 census !Ethnicity !Han Chinese !Manchu people !Korean !Hui people !Mongol !Sibe people !Daur people !Uyghurs !Zhuang people !Tujia people !Other |
One of the most famous dishes in Northeastern Chinese cuisine is Guo Bao Rou, a form of sweet and sour pork. It is a classic dish from Harbin that originated in the early 20th century in Daotai Fu (links=no). It consists of a bite-sized pieces of pork in a potato starch batter, deep-fried until crispy. They are then lightly coated in a variation of a sweet and sour sauce, made from freshly prepared syrup, rice vinegar, sugar, flavoured with ginger, cilantro, sliced carrot and garlic. The Harbin Guobaorou is distinct from that of other areas of China, such as Liaoning, where the sauce may be made using either tomato ketchup or orange juice. Rather the Harbin style is dominated by the honey and ginger flavours and has a clear or honey yellow colour. Originally the taste was fresh and salty. In order to fete foreign guests, Zheng Xingwen, the chef of Daotai Fu, altered the dish into a sweet and sour taste. Usually, people prefer to go to several small or middle size restaurants to enjoy this dish, because it is difficult to handle the frying process at home.
Demoli Stewed Live Fish is one among other notable dishes in Harbin, which is originated in a village named Demoli on the expressway from Harbin to Jiamusi. The village is now Demoli Service Area on Harbin-Tongjiang Expressway. Stewed Chicken with Mushrooms, Braised Pork with Vermicelli, and quick-boil pork with Chinese sauerkraut are also typical authentic local dishes.
Since Russia had a strong influence on Harbin's history, the local cuisine of Harbin also contains Russian-style dishes and flavor. There are several authentic Russian-style restaurants in Harbin, especially alongside the Zhongyang Street.
A popular regional specialty is Harbin-style smoked savory red sausage. This product, which is similar to mild Lithuanian and German sausages, tend to be much more of European flavours than other Chinese sausages. In 1900, Russian merchant Ivan Yakovlevich Churin founded a branch in Harbin, which was named Qiulin Group (p=Qiulin Yanghang; ) selling imported clothes, leather boots, canned foods, vodka, etc., and began to expand sales network in other cities in Manchuria. Торговая фирма «И. Я. Чурин и Ко» и табачная фабрика А. Лопато // Китайский информационный Интернет-центр 10/01/2003Спутник по Сибири, Маньчжурии, Амуру и Уссурийскому краю. 1911 год (6 год издания). Составил И. С. Кларк. VII выпуск. — Иркутск. — Паровая типо-литография П. Макушина и В. Посохина. — С. 106. The influx of Europeans through the Trans-Siberian Railway and Chinese Eastern Railway, increased demand of European flavor food. In 1909, Churin's Sausage Factory was founded, and first produced European flavor sausage with the manufacturing process of Lithuanian staff. Since then, European style sausage has become a specialty of the city.
A Russian style large round bread Dalieba, derived from the Russian word khleb for "bread" is also produced in Harbin's bakeries. Dalieba is a miche like sourdough bread. First introduced to the locals by a Russian baker, it has been sold in bakeries in Harbin for over a hundred years.
Kvass, a Russia-originated fermented beverage made from black bread or regular rye bread, is also popular in Harbin. Madier ("马迭尔", derived from "Modern") ice-cream provided in the Zhongyang Street is also well known in northern China. This ice cream is made from a specific traditional recipe and it tastes a little salty but more sweet and milky. Besides its headquarters in Harbin, it also has branches in other major Chinese cities including Beijing, Shanghai, etc.
Harbin is also known for its European-style structures and designs, such as the popular Saint Sophia Cathedral, Central Street, and the Baroque compositional complex in Lao Daowai (Old Town).
The annual Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival has been held since 1985. Although the official start date is 5 January each year, in practice, many of the sculptures can be seen before. While there are ice sculptures throughout the city, there are two main exhibition areas: enormous snow sculptures at Sun Island (Taiyang Dao, a AAAAA-rated recreational area on the opposite side of the Songhua River from the city) and the separate "Ice and Snow World" that operates each night with lights switched on, illuminating the sculptures from both inside and outside. Ice and Snow World features illuminated full-size buildings made from blocks of 2–3 feet thick crystal clear ice directly taken from the Songhua River, which passes through the city. The sculptures inside the exhibition ground takes 15,000 workers to work for 16 days. In early December, ice artisans cut 120,000 cubic metres (4.2 million cubic feet) of ice blocks from Songhua river's frozen surface as raw materials for the ice sculptures' show. Massive ice buildings, large-scale snow sculptures, ice slides, festival food and drinks can also be found in several parks and major avenues in the city. Winter activities in the festival include Yabuli Alpine Skiing, snow mobile driving, winter-swimming in Songhua River, and the traditional ice-lantern exhibition in Zhaolin Garden, which was first held in 1963.
Snow carving and ice and snow recreations are famous nationwide, especially among Asian countries including Korea, Japan, Thailand and Singapore.
The "Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival" is one of the four largest ice and snow festivals in the world, along with Japan's Sapporo Snow Festival, Canada's Quebec City Winter Carnival, and Norway's Holmenkollen Ski Festival.
Every November, the city of Harbin sends teams of ice artisans to the United States to promote their unique art form. It takes more than 100 artisans to create ICE!, the annual display of indoor Christmas-themed ice carvings in National Harbor, Maryland; Nashville, Tennessee; Kissimmee, Florida; and Grapevine, Texas.
The 'Harbin Summer Music Month', which was then renamed as 'Harbin Summer Music Concert', was held in August 1958. The first formal Concert was held on 5 August 1961 in Harbin Youth Palace, and kept on every year until 1966 when the Cultural Revolution started in China. In 1979, the Concert was recovered and from 1994, it has been held every two years. As a part of 2006 Harbin Summer Music Concert's opening ceremony, a 1,001-piano concert was held in Harbin's Flood memorial square located at the north end of Central Street (links=no) on 6 August 2006. Repertoires of the ensemble consisted of Triumphal March, Military March, Radetzky March and famous traditional local song On The Sun Island. This concert set a new Guinness World Record for largest piano ensemble, surpassing the previous record held by German artists in a 600-piano concert. In 2008, the 29th Harbin Summer Music Concert was held on 6 August.
The Russian Orthodox church, Saint Sophia Cathedral, is also located in the central district of Daoli. Built in 1907 and expanded from 1923 to 1932, it was closed during the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution periods. Following its designation in 1996 as a national cultural heritage site (First class Preserved Building), "Preserved Buildings" . Harbin Urban and Rural Planning Bureau . it was turned into a museum as a showcase of the history of Harbin city in 1997. The -tall Church, which covers an area of 721 square meters, is a typical representative of Byzantine architecture.
Many citizens believe that the Orthodox church damaged the local feng shui, so they donated money to build a Chinese Buddhist monastery in 1921, the Ji Le Temple. There were more than 15 Russian Orthodox churches and two cemeteries in Harbin until 1949. The Communist Revolution, and the subsequent Cultural Revolution, and the decrease in the ethnic Russian population, saw many of them abandoned or destroyed. Today, about 10 churches remain, while services are held only in the Church of the Intercession in Harbin.
The Harbin Railway Administration, formerly known as the Middle East Railway Administration, commonly known as the "big stone house", was built in 1902, destroyed twice and rebuilt in 1904 and 1906.
The Harbin Grand Theatre is a landmark building in Harbin. It is built in accordance with the water and is consistent with the surrounding environment. It embodies the concept of the landscape and landscape of the north. As a public building facility, the theatre provides people and visitors with different spatial experiences from the theatre, landscape, square and stereoscopic platform. During the design process, architect Ma Yansong has set up a unique sightseeing corridor and viewing platform in the Grand Theatre. Visitors are able to overlook the surrounding wetland and enjoy the unique natural wetland scenery of Harbin.
After the completion of the Harbin Grand Theatre, the public can enjoy opera, symphony, ballet and drama performances in various function rooms.
Harbin has an indoor speed skating arena, the Heilongjiang Indoor Rink. Opened in 1995, it is the oldest one of seven in China.
Mutual cooperation of the Far Eastern State Academy of Physical Culture and the Harbin Institute of Physical Education started an exchange of sports and cultural delegations, holding of sports, training of Chinese students in Khabarovsk, Russia and Harbin. Russian side started to have plans to introduce bandy to China while Harbin has good preconditions to become one of the strong points of this sport in China. The national team is based in Harbin, and it was confirmed in advance that they would play in the 2015 Bandy World Championship. The Chinese team came 16th in a field of 17 teams, edging out Somalia. Mr Zhu, president of the sport university, is a member of the Federation of International Bandy council. In December 2017, an international student tournament will be played. While Chinese bandy is still in its initial stages, it is expected that Harbin even more will become the driving force behind the domestic development, for example via opening the Federation of International Bandy office for development and promotion in Asia.
Heilongjiang Ice City Football Club currently play their home soccer matches at Harbin International Conference Exhibition and Sports Center, a 50000-seater stadium. The team gained promotion to China's second tier for the 2018 season when they came first in the 2017 China League Two division.
KRS Heilongjiang are a professional ice hockey team based in the city. A member of the Russian-based Supreme Hockey League and one of two Chinese teams in the league. The team is affiliated with the Kontinental Hockey League side, also based in China, HC Kunlun Red Star.
An indoor ski resort opened in Harbin in 2017 and laid claim to be the world's largest of its kind. It will make it possible to enjoy down-hill skiing all year round. harbin.gov.cn, Local News: "World's largest indoor ski resort opens to public", 4 July 2017-07-04 , retrieved 21 October 2017
Harbin hosted the Asian Basketball Confederation Championship in 2003, in which China won the championship on their home court for the thirteenth time.
Harbin bid to host the 2010 Winter Olympics, which was ultimately awarded to Vancouver, Canada.
The second China-Russia University Winter Sports Carnival was inaugurated 12 December 2017. This marked the first international bandy in Harbin. The Russian participation came from in Khabarovsk among men and IrGTU in Irkutsk among women.
Being the national centre of bandy, Harbin organised Division B of the 2018 Bandy World Championship and China improved its placing to 12th from a total field of 16 teams.
The city's main railway stations are the Harbin Railway Station, which was first built in 1899 and expanded in 1989. The main station is rebuilt in 2017, and now is still under construction; the Harbin East Railway Station, which opened in 1934; and the Harbin West Railway Station, which was built into the city's high-speed railway station in 2012. Another main station, Harbin North Railway Station, opened for public service in 2015, along with new built Harbin-Qiqihar Passenger Railway.
Direct passenger train service is available from Harbin Railway Station to large cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Jinan, Nanjing and many other major cities in China. Direct high-speed railway service began operation between Harbin West and Shanghai Hongqiao stations on 28 December 2013, and shorten the journey time to 12 hours.
The Line 1 of Harbin Metro opened on 26 September 2013. It is oriented along the east–west axis of the urban area of Harbin: from north-east (Harbin East Railway Station) to south-west (2nd Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University). Line 2 and Line 3 are under construction. Line 2 runs from Songbei District to Xiangfang District and ringlike Line 3 runs through Daoli, Daowai, Nangang and Xiangfang Districts of Harbin. On 26 January 2017, Phase I of Line 3 opened for public service. Line 3 links Harbin West Railway Station to Yidaeryuan Station, the transfer station between Line 1 and Line 3. In the long term, the city plans to build nine radiating metro lines and a circle line in downtown and some suburban districts, which account for by 2025.
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As Harbin serves as an important military industrial base after PRC's foundation, it is home to several key universities mainly focused on the science and technology service of national military and aerospace industry. Soviet experts played an important role in many education projects in this period. Due to the threat of possible war with the Soviet Union, however, several colleges were moved southwards to Changsha, Chongqing, and several other South China cities in China in the 1960s. Some of these colleges were returned to Harbin in the 1970s.
The city hosts several major universities in Northeast China, including Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin Medical University, Northeast Agricultural University, Harbin University of Science and Technology, Harbin Normal University, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin University, Heilongjiang University of Science and Technology, Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine, Harbin University of Commerce, Harbin Sport University, and Heilongjiang University.
Notably, Harbin Institute of Technology is consistently ranked as one of the best universities in the world for engineering. HIT was ranked fifth globally in the Best Global Universities for Engineering by U.S. News in 2022. Founded in 1920 with strong support by the Russian diaspora connected with the Chinese Eastern Railway, the university has developed into an important research university mainly focusing on engineering (e.g. in space science and defense-related technologies, welding technology and engineering), with supporting faculties in the sciences, management, humanities and social sciences. The institute's faculty and students contributed to and invented China's first analog computer, the first intelligent chess computer, and the first arc-welding robot. In 2010, research funding from the government, industry, and business sectors surpassed RMB1.13 billion, the second highest of any university in China.
In 2009 Harbin opened an International Sister Cities museum. It has 1,048 exhibits in 28 rooms, with a total area of .
On 3 September 2015, China and Russia signed an agreement to re-open the Russian consulate in Harbin, as the former Soviet consulate was closed in 1962 after the Sino-Soviet split. China will also establish a corresponding consulate in Vladivostok.
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