Located in Eastern China, central Shandong Province, Zibo borders Linyi to the south, Dongying and Binzhou to the north, Weifang to the east, and Jinan, the capital of Shandong Province, to the west. It lies in the junction of two national strategic economic zones and the provincial capital agglomeration economic circle of Shandong Province. The two national strategic economic zones are Yellow River Delta high-efficiency ecological economic zone and Shandong Peninsula Blue Economic Zone. It is one of the core cities of the Shandong Peninsula urban agglomeration and a sub-central city of the provincial capital agglomeration economic circle.

The leading industries of Zibo are petrochemical, fine chemicals, electromechanical, pharmaceutical, textile, building materials, light industry, metallurgy, information industry and new materials. It is an important producing area of petrochemical, pharmaceutical and building materials. It’s known as China’s Famous Ceramic City, China’s Famous New Material City. It’s also a state-level base for the transformation and industrialization of new material results. It also designated as National Torch Plan Biomedical Characteristic Industrial Base, National Torch Plan Advanced Ceramic Characteristic Industrial Base, National Torch Plan Functional Glass Characteristic Industrial Base, National Torch Plan Polyurethane Characteristic Industrial Base, National Torch Plan Pump Characteristic Industrial Base and National Strategic Emerging Industry Regional Agglomeration and Development Pilot City.

Zibo is a national historic and cultural city with a long history. It’s the birthplace of Qi culture and the origin of football; the name of Zibo was formed in early 1920s and was the combination of Zichuan and Boshan; Zibo special zone, Zibo industrial and mining zone and Zibo prefecture were established between 1945 and 1953; in 1954, Zibo City directly under Shandong Province was established, which was the third provincially administered municipality city (prefecture-level city) of Shandong Province after the founding of the People’s Republic of China. It is the “larger municipality” and National civilized City approved by State Council.

Zibo is a group city with both mountains and rivers and it boasts Boshan National Scenic Area; it is also a resource-based city (regenerative city),a national old industrial base and the first industrial transformation and upgrading demonstration plot. There is Shandong Province regional equity trading market (Qilu equity trading center). Zibo Hi-tech Industrial Development Zone is a national independent innovation demonstration area of Shandong Peninsula; Zhangdian District of Zibo City is a national mass entrepreneurship and innovation demonstration base.