Before the coming of the Russian Imperialists, historians describe Harbin "small and insignificant," "cold and desolate" and "bitter and freezing."

Yet over the centuries, Harbin gave rise to several bronze-age cultures, the more significant of these being the ancient ethnic Manchu Wuji people. 'Wuji' is the modern pronunciation of the Chinese characters 勿吉 which was written in the historical records of the early fourth century. The ancient pronunciation was Moji (or Merjie).
Wuji 無極 (literally 'without ridgepole') originally meant 'boundless and infinite' in the Daoist classics of the Warring States Period (476-221 BCE) and was used in the context of returning to one's original nature. It later came to mean the 'primordial universe' prior to the Taiji 太極 'Supreme Ultimate' in Song Dynasty (960-1279 CE) Neo-Confucianist cosmology.

The Bronze Age archaeological sites of Yaolingzitun and Chenjiagang in the city suburbs present an early cultural blossoming revealing pottery spinning wheels, fine bone implements, needles made from obsidian stone, bone horns and various pieces of pottery belonging to the Baijinbao-Wanghaitun culture. More than 20 ancient walls have been discovered within the boundaries of Harbin, with the majority of them built during the Liao and Jin dynasties with archaeological sites providing a wealth of woven patterned cylindrical tiles, bricks and flat floor tiles, pottery and porcelain shards.

Harbin bears the nicknames "the Pearl on the swan's neck" because the shape of Heilongjiang River resembles a swan and "Ice City" for its long and cold winters. It lies on the Songhua River, which was known as Huentong River in ancient times and rises from the Tianchi Lake atop the Baitou Mountain. The water "rolls down the mountain as if it fell from the heaven" and as such is also known as the Tianhe River (River from Heaven). There is some debate as to the original meaning of the name Harbin with historians generally giving that 'Harbin' is originally a Manchu word meaning "a place for drying fishing nets." Other translations include,' 'fishing lake,' 'place for drying nets,' 'crossing place,' 'poor village,' 'good riverbank,' and 'large grave'.... For the original origin of the word 'Harbin' - there are claims for Russian, Manchurian, Mongolian and Manchu. However, the word Harbin is actually a transliteration of the name 'Alejin,' recorded in the Jin dynasty and means 'power,' 'glory' or 'prestige' and is of Jurchen origin. In ancient records, "Alejin" is the earliest name for the town, having taken form as a provincial fishing village and the year 1097 is said to stand as the founding date of Harbin. In ancient times Harbin was inhabited by Jurchen minority, the ancestors of the Manchu ethnic group. The great quantity of archaeological finds in Manchuria's city of Harbin date from 10,000 to 50,000 years ago when the hunter-gatherers of the region settled in the area.

The present day Chinese descriptions and the archaeological evidence of Harbin contradict early Russian accounts of what the city looked like in 1898. When Russian surveyors and engineers employed by the Trans Siberian Railway arrived on the banks of the Songhua River, where their main railway bridge was to be constructed, they were allegedly disappointed to find the place so desolate... "If there had been a cine-camera at hand, it would have filmed a group of mounted horse guards making their way through a field of green bristle grass and kaoliang. None of the horsemen knew at the time that the terrain they were riding across would in a few years become a busy quarter of a densely populated town."

The area was not however desolate and in a further Russian account we find a record of a Qing fortress on the riverbank, surrounded by a small walled town. ... "We halted in dismay and at a relatively narrow elevation we glimpsed a 'yimpan' fortress on the site of which is now Gorodskoy sad (town garden) and an extensive well equiped fishing fleet at work on the river. The fortress mentioned in the Russian source turned out to be a customs station, staffed by over one hundred Manchu Qing bannermen customs officers. One cannot help wonder why such a large number of customs officers were concentrated in such a desolate environment.

According to Chinese records and during the rise of the Qing Dynasty, the province of Jilin with the town of Harbin fell under the administration of the subsidiary capital of Mukden. In the fifty-third year of the reign of the Qian Long emperor (1788) the area around Harbin was settled and cultivated by Manchurian and Chinese peasants. During the reign of the Jiaqing emperor, following the policy of 're-settlement' of Manchu banner men and letting them break new ground' and the ending of the 'forbidden zone policy' (ie: a ban on Chinese Han immigration), banner men and civilian villages were founded in Harbin's Pingfang, Nangang and Guxiangtun districts. According to figures from the second year of the reign of the Guangxu emperor (1876) there were 3,730 households and a population as high as 28,257.

The social structure of Harbin was hierarchical with the military elite of banner officers on the top rung, a second layer of tribal chiefs and below these groups of ordinary banner men, merchants, craftsmen and exiled Chinese officials. At the bottom of Harbin society were the slaves, servants and convicted criminals. Outside the 'official' established society were itinerant hunters, fur traders, gold miners and illegal immigrants, mostly Korean. The majority of townsfolk engaged in fishing for Heilongjiang Carp, silk crucian, dog fish and red eel which was salted, packed and transfered across China to be sold. The soil in Harbin, called 'black earth' is one the most nutrient rich in all of Manchurian and China, making it valuable for cultivating food such as soy and sorghum, ginseng and mushrooms. Fur hunters took advantage of the wealth of Arctic fox, sable, bears, deer and tigers.

The Qing isolation policy was never airtight and often contradictory and in periods of forced prohibition of Han settlement, there was an influx of Chinese settlers sent by the Qing government as political exiles and in 1676, 3000 Chinese families were sent to the Harbin area for re-settlement. In 1875, with banditry on the rise, the people of Harbin organised themselves into town militias (lianhui) and in 1898 the Qing government ordered the formation of village battalions (xiangtuan) in the Harbin area.

The modern city of Harbin originated in 1898 with the start of the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway by Russia as an extension of the Trans-Siberian Railway, short-cutting the distance to Vladivostok and creating a link to the port city of Dalian and the Russian Naval Base of Port Arthur. Geographically, Harbin is located in Northeast China under the direct influence of the cold winter winds from Siberia. The average temperature in summer is 21.2 degrees Celsius and −16.8 degrees Celsius in winter, sometimes reaching as cold as −38.1. Today the city is called the 'Oriental St. Petersburg,' or the 'Oriental Paris of the North' and is considered one of China's most beautiful cities, hosting a popular and spectacular ice sculpture festival each year. The Ice Festival traces its roots back to the 1600's when the local residents started making ice lanterns during the winter.

The city is well-known for its unique Russian and European-influenced architecture featuring Byzantine facades. Believing the Russian church of St. Sophia's damaged the city's 'feng shui,' Harbin's citizens donated money in 1921 to build the Ji Le Temple, a Chinese monastery. More than ten Russian churches were destroyed during Mao’s Cultural Revolution.

Facing the urban area across the river, we find the Island of Taiyang, a scenic and restful spot with a sand bar embraced by lapping waters, edged by willow lined embankments. Here leafy trees shade into different greens, flowers show off various colours, fragrant scents permeate the fresh air over undulating sand dunes that alternate with carpet like grasses and flower beds.