Kwantung Leased Territory located on terrain feature Kwantung Peninsula
The Kwantung Leased Territory (Japanese: 關東州, Kantō-shū; traditional Chinese: 關東州; simplified Chinese: 关东州; pinyin: Guāndōng zhōu; Wade–Giles: Kwan1-tung1-chou1) was a leased territory of the Empire of Japan in the Liaodong Peninsula from 1905 to 1945.
Japan first acquired Kwantung from the Qing Empire in perpetuity in 1895 in the Treaty of Shimonoseki after victory in the First Sino-Japanese War. Kwantung was located at the militarily and economically significant southern tip of the Liaodong Peninsula at the entrance of the Bohai Sea, and included the port city of Ryojun (Port Arthur/Lüshunkou). Japan lost Kwantung weeks later in the Triple Intervention and the Qing transferred the lease to the Russian Empire in 1898, who governed the territory as Russian Dalian and rapidly developed infrastructure and the city of Dairen (Dalniy/Dalian). Japan re-acquired the Kwantung lease from Russia in 1905 in the Treaty of Portsmouth after victory in the Russo-Japanese War, continued to rapidly develop the territory, and obtained extraterritorial rights known as the South Manchuria Railway Zone. Japan extended the lease with the Republic of China in the Twenty-One Demands and used Kwantung as a base to launch the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Kwantung Leased Territory ceased to exist following the Surrender of Japan in World War II in September 1945 when the Soviet Red Army began to administer the region until Kwantung and the Lüshun base was handed over to the People's Republic of China on 16 April 1955.