Shouguang

Shouguang is a county-level city in the north of the Weifang prefecture, on the southwest shore of Laizhou Bay. It sits on an alluvial plain drained by the Mihe river, and this is one of the first places in China where grain was cultivated: there are Dawenkou and Beixin culture sites here, and a Dongyi settlement from around 3000 BC. In the Han dynasty it was a county and already one of the largest grain bases in China and a salt trading centre. In the sixth century Jia Sixie was born here and wrote the Qimin Yaoshu, the earliest book on agriculture in China. Today the city is known as the home of vegetables.