Dalian Zhoushuizi International Airport

Dalian Zhoushuizi International Airport serves the port city of Dalian on the southern tip of the Liaodong Peninsula in northeastern China — a strategically significant coastal industrial center facing the Korean peninsula and positioned on the direct sea route between Bohai Bay and the Yellow Sea. Located in Ganjingzi District, 6 mi (10 km) northwest of downtown Dalian at just 107 ft (33 m) elevation within the urban perimeter, DLC handles 163 routes across 77 destinations through 34 airlines and recorded roughly 13M passengers in 2024 before a planned replacement facility opens offshore. China Southern Airlines operates DLC as a base, with China Eastern, Air China, Hainan Airlines, Shandong Airlines, Shenzhen Airlines, Juneyao, and Spring Airlines maintaining substantial presences. International service emphasizes East Asia — Tokyo–Narita, Osaka–Kansai, Seoul–Incheon, Busan, Fukuoka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Vladivostok, Taipei, Hong Kong, and Bangkok — with particularly dense Japan connectivity reflecting Dalian's deep historical and ongoing Japanese business-investment ties dating to the early 20th century. Seasonal long-haul service has run to Frankfurt via Hainan Airlines on an A330. The domestic network covers all major Chinese hubs including Beijing, Shanghai (PVG and SHA), Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Chongqing, Xi'an, Kunming, Harbin, Changchun, and Shenyang. The single 10,827 ft (3,300 m) concrete runway (10/28) handles widebody operations, but the airport's constrained single-runway configuration and dense urban encroachment have driven construction of a replacement: Dalian Jinzhouwan International Airport, a massive offshore man-made-island facility 16 mi (26 km) from downtown, designed to handle 80M annual passengers once fully operational in the late 2020s — one of the largest airport land-reclamation projects ever undertaken. When Jinzhouwan opens, DLC will close to commercial traffic and the current site is planned for conversion into high-density mixed-use urban redevelopment. Until then, DLC remains the sole commercial gateway for a metropolitan area of roughly 7.5M people and a major northeast Chinese port-industrial and software-outsourcing economy.