Qufu, Tai 'an, Zibo and Linyi in Shandong Province are not inferior to Jinan, an ancient city in Qingdao, but they have no advantages in the whole province, let alone the whole country.
Qingdao is positioned as an international port tourist city. The GDP of port cities is second only to Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Tianjin, and the GDP of cities directly adjacent to the sea (the above four cities are not directly adjacent to the sea) ranks first. It can be said that Qingdao's port status is also one of the best in the country, and whether it is smog or sunshine, it is far behind in the province. Tsingtao Brewery, the best-selling beer in the world, has also pushed Qingdao's brand to the world.
Shandong University, the only top university in Jinan, also moved from the National Qingdao University, and the local area has never bred excellent institutions. The establishment of Qingdao Campus of Shandong University, the relocation of Youshi University in China to Qingdao, the expansion of Jiaozhou Campus of Qingdao University, and the establishment of branches of National Institute of Oceanography and various research institutes have made Qingdao surpass Jinan in the quality of colleges and universities. In Shandong Province, the scores of college entrance examination are among the best in Qingdao. Most colleges and universities in Qingdao take engineering, medicine and science as their dominant majors, and their strength is not bad (most of them are engineering in Shanda Campus, engineering in Haida University, medicine in Shidashan and chemical engineering in Qingke). Everyone knows how important the practicality of science and engineering is to urban development. On the contrary, universities in Jinan, such as Shandong University and Shandong University, have poor comprehensive strength at first, and most of them are better in basic disciplines of arts and sciences, which is obviously different from Qingdao.
If the city is well-known, Tsingtao beer in Qingdao has a high sense of existence, and Haier Hisense also has a high sense of existence. Laoshan Mountain in the East China Sea, Qingdao Trestle, Olympic Sailing Center and Qingdao Beer Festival make Qingdao an international tourist city. On the contrary, Jinan, Baotu Spring and Daming Lake are really famous, but they are not as good as Qingdao.
On the whole, Qingdao can be compared with Suzhou, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Xiamen, Dalian and other coastal developed cities, while Jinan is more connected with Zhengzhou, Shijiazhuang, Taiyuan, Hefei and other mainland capital cities. Qingdao is considered to be developed, beautiful and livable, while Jinan is more of an old city with smog and traffic jams. If Qingdao is blue, Jinan is gray and brown.