Beidaihe lies on the coast west of Qinhuangdao, where the shoreline turns into a series of sandy beaches and low headlands. Foreign residents and Chinese officials began using it as a summer retreat in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and it remains a resort district. The mudflats and shallow water around it are a stopover for birds on the East Asian-Australasian flyway, and the district has a long record of bird observation.
Beidaihe is a district of Qinhuangdao with 22.5 kilometres of coast, a ten-kilometre beach of fine yellow sand and shallow water, and a villa history that begins in 1898. It is also one of East Asia's busiest migration corridors, with a banding station and a wetland reserve.