Yantai has a long history and it is one of birthplaces of early culture in ancient time. According to the record in the later period of Gengxin Time (about 10000 or 20000 years ago from now )there were already people living here. In 1398(Ming Dynasty Hongwu the 31st year ) in order to prevent the pirates from entering , people built "Fenghuo Tai" (in chinese, it means the place where smoke is produced to give warning)from which Yantai derived its name. It has already been 600 years since Yantai City was built up . In 1858 (Qing Dynasty Xianfeng the 8th year ) Sino-France Tianjin Treaty made Dengzhou an open commercial port and three years later Dengzhou was renamed Yantai. 

Abundant Ocean Resource.
There are a few natural bathing beaches in Yantai. One of them is Golden Beach which is 10 kilometers long,smooth beach., clear and unpolluted water ,thin and pure sand.It is called the No.1 beach in the north of China. There have many islands which have different feature.Such as the largest continent island in China-----Zhifu Island which looks like Lingzhi;the boundary island between Huang Hai and Bo Hai–Chang Dao, the beautiful attractive island----Kongtong Dao 

Abundant Mountain and forest resources.
Kongyu Shan,Luo Shan, Forest Sea in Changdao are the three national forest park .which have broad field,flourish woods,clear air. It has plentiful plantation. Such as in Kunyu Shan there are totally 59 kinds wooden plantation, 148 belongings ,328 items. and 600 kends grass plantation .which almost includes all types of trees in the south and north of China. More particularly they are not separated mountains.For example there are springs in Kunyu shan, Luo Shan is near the lake, Forest Sea is besides the sea. The still and quiet mountain is added more active colors by these forests and spings. There are other mountain and forest resources such as Xuefeng Shan in Laizhou City,Ta Shan in Zhifu District,Qifeng Shan in Haiyang City,Aigu Shan in Penglai City.
　　
Clean And Beautiful City.
More and more domestic and international tourist are attracted to Yantai by its pleasant climate and beautiful natural scenery. It also gains praise from all tourists for its clean attractive city feature.Broad street ,Great coverage grass, Satisfied service,kind citizen,these are all the beautiful scenery. It was once awarded National Excellent Tourism City Sanitary City ,Garden City,Civilized city.Yantai has rich human resource such as the oldest history relique of open culture of the latest modern time, the 17 countries' Consulate relique kept under the foot of Yantai Hill,the Penglai Pavilion which is one of four famous pavilions ,the Wei Dynasty'Stele Stone Carve in Yunfeng Shan which is called the art treasure of Chinese old writing, the Mushi Manor which is the biggest manor in the North of China, the fairy about 8 supernatural beings ,the eastern patrol of Emperor Qin, the relic of Xufu eastern travel.
　
Present condition of tourism development. 
On the base of abundant tourism resources,it already has a certain development base in Yantai tourism field. During the 9th five-year (1996-2000). it totally hosted 34267 thousand people. The general income is 22,708,000,000,000 Yuan.Among these it hosted 650 thousand overseas guests ,overseas income is US$ 240,000,000. There are 600 tourism enterprises,the employers engaged in this field are about 62 thousand. There are 92 tourism hotels which includes 26 star hotel.It can meet the demands on accommodation for different kinds of tourists.