Jilin City is among one of the oldest cities in Northeast China. The ancestors of the Manchus lived there before Qin Dynasty. During the reign of the Yongle Emperor in the early 15th century, efforts were made to expand Chinese control throughout entire Manchuria. Mighty river fleets were built and sailed several times from Jilin City, getting the chieftains of the local tribes to swear allegiance to the Ming rulers. Soon after the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, the territory of today's Primorsky Kray was made under the administration of Jilin. As the Czarist Russian eastward advance to the Pacific coast, Qing Government ordered to set up a naval shipbuilding factory here in 1661. Jilin was officially established as a fort city in 1673 when Anzhuhu, the Deputy Lieutenant-General, was ordered to build a castle in Jilin. In 1676, the Military Governor of Ninguta was transferred to Jilin City because of its more conveniently location and increase of the military importance, while the former Deputy Lieutenant-General) was transferred in the opposite direction to Ninguta. Since then Jilin City has developed at a rapid pace. The nickname of Jilin City is River City, which was originated from one sentence of a poem written by Kangxi Emperor when he was visiting Jilin City in 1682. Jilin retained its importance into the 18th and 19th century as one of the few cities existing beyond the Willow Palisade, along with Tsitsihar, Ninguta and Mukden.
After Manchukuo established their capital in Hsinking(Changchun), Jilin City's importance decreased. By 1940, Jilin's population was 173,624, while Hsinking's population reached 544,202 at the same time.
Jilin eventually became the provincial capital of Jilin Province after the establishment of the People's Republic of China, until Changchun took this position in 1956
