Heze, a city known as “China Peony City” and “the hometown of Chinese opera, Chinese martial arts and calligraphy and painting”, is one of the most famous historical and cultural resorts with more than 100 places of interest such as Sun Bin Tourist Town, Site of Fang Mountain. Situated in the south-west of Shandong province, Heze (114°48′- 116°24′E, 34°39′- 35°52′N) occupies 1 city district, 8 counties and 1 provincial economic and technological development zone with a population of 8640 thousand. The Yellow River enters it from Lankao county, Henan province, one of three provinces (Henan, Jiangsu, Anhui) it borders, flowing through its four counties and districts, named Dongming, Peony, Tancheng and Yuncheng respectively.

It is located at the lower reach of the Yellow River and belongs to the Huanghe plain, a part of the new settlement basin of North China Plain, except for the hilly of Juye County, covering an area of 12,239 square kilometers. Topographically, Heze features plains and low mountains. It has the continental climate of warm temperate zone, with abundant sunshine and rainfall. Its annual temperate averages 14℃ and the annual average precipitation is 655 mm. In addition to having good climate and rich natural resources, the city has optimized the utilization of resources and provides a better environment for its citizens.

The favorable geographic locations as transportation hub and ecological construction have made Heze a convenient and habitation-friendly place. Leaning against the Yellow River and facing the east route of the water diversion program on the east, it is rich in water resources. Inside the city Beijing- Jiulong railway and New Eurasian Continental Bridge intersect with each other, so do Rizhao- Dongying speedway, Jinan- Heze speedway and Heze-Lanzhou speedway, and national highways and provincial highways, making its traffic quite accessible for residents and passengers; meanwhile the power and telecommunication systems are superior, enabling the customs, commercial inspection departments and integrated container services to run corporately. Attention has also been paid to the ecological construction: not only does green coverage rate of the city has reached 21.4%, for which it has been honored as “the advanced city of green coverage and forestry industrialization”, but such projects as “Heze University Town”, “China Model City of Ecological Landscape” and “China Peony City” are being implemented in order to make it become a modern, ecotypic garden city which is livable and environmentally friendly in the near future.