Tianjin is one of the first Chinese cities to have contact with modern western civilizations. After being opened as a trading port in 1860, Tianjin became a pioneer of opening in the north and a base of “Westernization Movement”, breaking new grounds in the fields of military modernization and railway, telegraph, telephone, modern education, etc.

　　In the first half of the twentieth century, Tianjin developed into a center of foreign trade, industry, and finance in northern China, and its population grew quickly too. Tianjin was the second largest industrial and commercial city in modern China, and an economic center in northern China.