TSAOCHOW, DIOCESE of. - In the south-western part of the province of Shantung, in northern China.
It was erected as an apostolic vicariate on 12 Nov. 1934, with territory Yenchow (v.), and entrusted, like the mother mission, to the Society of the Divine Word; on 11 Apr. 1946 it was raised to the rank of diocese, suffragan to Tsinan. Over an area of 13,000 sq. km, it had, as of 30 June 1950, approximately 4,000,000 inhabitants, of whom 74,013 were Catholics, with 59 priests, including 12 Chinese, and 49 nuns, 45 of them native. It had 1 seminary, 6 schools, and 32 charitable and welfare institutions.
The first evangelical preaching in the territory of T. dates from after the arrival of the Divine Word missionaries in the southern region of Shantung, which took place in 1882. It was their first apostolic vicar, Mons. Giovanni Battista von Anzer (1886-1904), who unsuccessfully attempted to penetrate into T.; likewise futile were the attempts of Fr. Giuseppe Freinademetz to enter Tsaohsien. At Changkiachwang, in 1897, Frs. Francesco Nies and Riccardo Henle were killed. Subsequently the mission underwent considerable development: in 1934, the year T. was created, there were 47,000 Catholics and 9,000 catechumens, served by 33 priests, including 6 Chinese.