Kwantung

Kwantung Leased Territory
關東州
Annexed dependency of the Empire of Japan
1895 1905–1945
Flag Coat of arms
Capital		Dairen
Languages		Japanese (official) Mandarin Chinese
Government		Absolute monarchy
Emperor of Japan
•	1895 1905–1912	Emperor Meiji
•	1912–1926	Emperor Taishō
•	1926–1945	Emperor Showa
Historical era		Empire of Japan
•	Treaty of Shimonoseki	April 17, 1895
•	Surrendered	August 14, 1945
Currency		Japanese yen
Preceded by Succeeded by Qing Dynasty Russian Dalian Qing Dynasty Soviet occupation of Manchuria
Today part of		China

Kwantung Leased Territory
Kwantung Leased Territory in 1921. Area of influence and neutral zone.
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	關東州
Simplified Chinese	关东州
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Guāndōng Zhōu Wade–Giles Kuan1-tung1 Chou1
Japanese name
Kanji	関東州
Kana	かんとうしゅう
Transcriptions Romanization Kantōshū

The Kwantung Leased Territory was a territory in the southern part of the Liaodong Peninsula (Japanese: 遼東半島) in the Republic of China that existed from 1898 to 1945. It was one of the numerous territorial concessions that the Qing Dynasty was compelled to award to foreign countries at the end of the 19th century. The territory included the militarily and economically significant ports of Lüshunkou (Port Arthur, Port-Artur in Russian, or Ryojun in Japanese) and Dalian (Dalniy, Dal'nii in Russian, or Dairen in Japanese).

The name Kwantung, or Guāndōng (關東) in pinyin, means "east of Shanhai Pass", a reference to part of Qinhuangdao in today's Hebei province, at the eastern end of the Great Wall of China. The name originally referred to all of Manchuria but later came to be used more narrowly for the area of the leased territory. In Japanese it is pronounced Kantō and it is often referred to a s Kantō-shū to avoid confusion with the Kantō region surrounding the capital Tokyo.

In Qing dynasty China, the Liaodong Peninsula was administratively part of Liaoning Province. In 1882, the Beiyang Fleet established a naval base and coaling station at Lüshunkou near the southern end of the peninsula.

The Empire of Japan occupied the region during the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), and under the terms of the Treaty of Shimonoseki signed by Japan and China ending the war in April 1895, Japan gained full sovereignty of the area. However, within weeks, Germany, France and Russia pressured Japan to cede the territory back to China, in what was called the Triple Intervention.