Ningbo boasts a long history. It is the birthplace of the "Neolithic Hemudu Culture" dating back more than 7,000 years. Ningbo has been a well-known key port for foreign trade ever since ancient time. Ningbo ranked with Yangzhou and Guangzhou as the three biggest ports for foreign trade in Tang Dynasty and with Guangzhou and Quanzhou in Song Dynasty. After the First Opium War, Ningbo had been opened as one of the five commercial ports opened. Ningbo port has become one of the important ports in China. Its cargo handling capacity reached 128,52 million tonnages in 2001, ranking second among the ports in the mainland of China, and its container handling capacity amounted to 1,213,000 TEU.

Enjoying sound conditions for economics development, the social economy of Ningbo has been developed rapidly since opening up to the outside world. In 2001, the city GDP reached 131 billion RMB yuan, the GDP per capita 24,121 RMB yuan, the revenue 19.03 billion RMB yuan .The average disposable income of urban dwellers grew to 11,991 RMB yuan and the net income of peasants climbed to 5,362 RMB yuan. Nowadays, Ningbo has become an important industrial city and foreign trade port in east China, a key city and chemical industrial base in Yangtze Delta and an economic center of Zhejiang Province.

Ningbo enjoys subtropical monsoon climate featuring mild temperature, moderate humidity and distinctive seasons. The city is an ideal tourist place with culture monuments and historical sites.

Ningbo has great potentialities in development. By the year 2010, Ningbo will be built into a modernized socialist international port city with strong economic strength, further opening, advanced science and culture, comfortable life, fine social morality and beautiful environment.