Located near the southernmost point of the Liaodong Peninsula, the city of Dalian came under the territorial control of the Russian Empire from 1898 until that country's defeat in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905.

Under Russian control, Dalniy grew into a vibrant port city; before its loss in 1905 it was one terminus of the Russian-controlled Chinese Eastern Railway.

The 1890s saw the intensification of rivalries among Qing China, Japan, and Russia – with the lesser interests of Great Britain, Germany, and the United States – over paramount influence in Manchuria.

Though Japan seized control over the peninsula and was awarded it in the subsequent Treaty of Shimonoseki (1895), it was forced to retrocede it to Qing China following the diplomatic pressure of Russia, Germany, and France, the so-called Triple Intervention of 1895.

In 1897 Russia signed with Qing China a secret agreement for the establishment under Russian guidance of the Chinese Eastern Railway.

He approached the monumental task of transforming what was a scattering of sleepy Chinese fishing villages into a port city to rival Shanghai or Tianjin by dividing construction into two phases.

It called for the city to be divided into five connected districts - one commercial, two administrative, one residential, and one Chinese, and all supplied with electricity and a modern water system.

Nevertheless, the city's development also brought opportunities, and during the years of Russian tenureship tens of thousands of Chinese migrated into the area.

Described in 1949 as "New China's model metropolis" by the Chinese Communist Party, the former colonial city was occupied by the Soviet military from 1945 to 1950.