Dongping County

'eastern peace') is a county in the southwestern part of Tai'an, which is located in the west of Shandong Province, China.

In 2007 a remarkable series of well-preserved frescoes dating to the Western Han Period (206 BC - 25 AD) was discovered in a tomb as construction workers were excavating for a planned shopping mall.

The frescoes show, among other things, one of the earliest pictorial representations of Confucius meeting Laozi.

[5] Other ethnic minorities in the county include the Mongolian, Tibetan, Miao, Dong, Bai, Tujia, Hani, Dai, Lisu, Li, Jingpo, Yi, Zhuang, Buyi, Korean, Manchu, and Wa peoples.

[6] In some southern portions of the county, as well as regions surrounding Dongping Lake, retroflexes are dropped, resulting in certain characters with different pronunciations in Standard Mandarin (such as Chinese: 四; pinyin: sì and Chinese: 十; pinyin: shí) being pronounced similarly.

Fresco showing Confucius and Laozi meeting