Tai'an

The mountain came first. Mount Tai was worshipped as the eastern peak long before there was a city below it, and the feng and shan sacrifices made there by rulers from the Qin and Han onwards required a permanent establishment at its foot: priests, officials, stonemasons and inns for pilgrims. The Dai Temple, where emperors prepared before climbing, grew from Han foundations into the walled precinct that still occupies the centre of the city, rebuilt many times, most grandly under the Song.

The town below the peak takes its name from the mountain itself, from the old saying that if Mount Tai is stable then the four seas are at peace, and it became a prefecture seat under the Ming and Qing. Its economy was built on pilgrimage: the mountain drew crowds every year, particularly women praying to the goddess of the summit for children, and the town lived on lodging, incense, sedan chairs, porters and stone carving.

Railways reached Tai'an in 1909, when a station was built on the line between Tianjin and Pukou, and the city was bombed and then occupied by Japanese forces at the end of 1937. Under the People's Republic it became a prefecture-level city with industry alongside farming. Mount Tai was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987 for both its cultural and natural value, tourism grew rapidly, and the high-speed line from Beijing to Shanghai, opened in 2011, put the city within a few hours of both.

Almost everything distinctive here comes from the mountain's place in Chinese religion. Mount Tai was regarded as the point where heaven and earth met, the source of life and the seat of the god of the eastern peak, and later as the home of Bixia Yuanjun, the goddess whose temple stands near the summit. Pilgrims climb to burn incense, leave red ribbons and locks, and pray for children, health and examination success; the saying that a person is as steady as Mount Tai is common across the language.

The mountain is also one of the great galleries of Chinese calligraphy. Cliffs and boulders along the route carry inscriptions cut over two thousand years, more than a thousand cliff inscriptions and hundreds of stone steles in all, and rubbings and stone carving remain local crafts. The Dai Temple's cypresses, tablets and murals make it a record of imperial ritual in its own right.

Tai'an sits in the Confucian heartland of Shandong, close to Qufu, and local manners reflect it: formal politeness to elders, emphatic hospitality, and a dinner culture of repeated toasts in which the host sets the pace. Folk traditions include temple fairs, shadow puppetry and the Taishan stone amulets that are sold as protective charms. Residents are used to visitors and to the sight of strangers setting off up the steps at midnight.

About five and a half million people lived in the prefecture at the 2010 census, of whom about 1.7 million were in the two urban districts below the mountain. The city is laid out on the plain south of the peak, older and denser around the Dai Temple, newer and wider towards the high-speed station, and villages run up the valleys on either side of the mountain.

Tourism is the most visible industry, employing guides, drivers, hotel staff and the porters who carry supplies up the steps on shoulder poles, but it is not the whole economy: the wider prefecture has mining and manufacturing alongside a substantial agriculture of wheat, maize, vegetables, walnuts and the peaches grown around Feicheng. Water for Shandong's dry plain comes partly from reservoirs in these hills.

Life follows the mountain's timetable in summer, when buses run through the night and breakfast stalls open long before dawn for descending walkers. The rest of the year is an ordinary provincial rhythm: markets in the morning, square dancing in the evening, university students in the northern districts, and weekend walks on the lower slopes. Congestion at the trailheads during national holidays is the standing local complaint.

Tai'an cooking belongs to Lu cuisine, Shandong's classic school — to its Jinan branch, which covers Jinan, Dezhou and Tai'an — and leans on clear broths, braising, vinegar and a heavy hand with scallion and garlic. Its own speciality is tofu: soft white curd made with water from the mountain streams, simmered with cabbage in a plain soup that is served by the potful and regarded as the local dish.

Wheat rather than rice is the staple, as across northern Shandong — steamed buns, flatbreads, hand-pulled noodles and boiled dumplings. Jianbing, the thin crisp grain pancake rolled around raw spring onion and fermented bean paste, is the standard breakfast from a street cart. Braised and stewed meat dishes, freshwater fish from the reservoirs and river carp appear at larger meals, and the drinking is beer and baijiu.

The slopes supply a trade in mountain produce: wild greens and herbs, walnuts, chestnuts, dried mushrooms and a bitter local tea, sold dried in shops along the pilgrim route. Feicheng, north-west of the city, is known across China for its peaches, and Shandong's apples, pears and spring onions fill the markets. Snack streets near the temple sell skewers, fried dough, sweet potato and stewed offal late into the evening.