鲁A 12345

鲁 plates: Shandong, and what the letters mean

Facts checked

A plate beginning 鲁 was registered in Shandong, a province. The character is Lǔ, said roughly “loo”. 鲁 is the state of Lu, Confucius's home state, whose lands lay in southern Shandong. The province's name means 'east of the mountains' — east of the Taihang range.

The letter after it is the office that issued the plate. 鲁A belongs to Jinan, and 21 further letters are recorded below.

The colour of the plate is a separate fact from the characters: it says what kind of vehicle carries it, and the characters say nothing about it. The colour guide sets out what each of the 7 colours licenses.

Key facts

Plate character 鲁 Lǔ “loo”
PlaceShandong
Kindprovince
CapitalJinan
City letters22
Why this character鲁 is the state of Lu, Confucius's home state, whose lands lay in southern Shandong. The province's name means 'east of the mountains' — east of the Taihang range.

The city letters

Issuing offices in Shandong.
Prefix Letter City Note
鲁A A Jinan
鲁B B Qingdao
鲁C C Zibo
鲁D D Zaozhuang
鲁E E Dongying 鲁ET is the taxi block.
鲁F F Yantai
鲁G G Weifang
鲁H H Jining 鲁HT is the taxi block.
鲁J J Tai'an
鲁K K Weihai
鲁L L Rizhao
鲁M M Binzhou
鲁N N Dezhou
鲁O O Shandong public security Withdrawn: phased out from the second half of 2012 and no longer valid from 2019.
鲁P P Liaocheng
鲁Q Q Linyi
鲁R R Heze
鲁S S Jinan Reissued letter: 鲁S was Laiwu's plate until Laiwu was absorbed into Jinan in January 2019; issuing stopped that October and resumed on 22 March 2023 as Jinan's supplementary series.
鲁U U Qingdao Supplementary series for Qingdao, opened 2000: the same city runs two letters because one letter's combinations ran short. 鲁U·T0000–T9999 is the taxi block.
鲁V V Weifang Supplementary series for Weifang: the same city runs two letters because one letter's combinations ran short.
鲁W W Linyi Reissued letter: 鲁W was the series for provincial-agency staff cars until it stopped in late 2016 and lapsed in 2019; it was brought back in February 2024 as Linyi's supplementary series. English Wikipedia still shows it under the old provincial use.
鲁Y Y Yantai Supplementary series for Yantai: the same city runs two letters because one letter's combinations ran short.

Shandong plates: questions people ask

What does 鲁 mean on a Chinese licence plate?
鲁 (Lǔ, "loo") is the abbreviation for Shandong. 鲁 is the state of Lu, Confucius's home state, whose lands lay in southern Shandong. The province's name means 'east of the mountains' — east of the Taihang range.
Which city is 鲁A?
Jinan. The letter A goes to the seat of government in almost every province, and the remaining letters were assigned to the other issuing offices.
How many plate letters does Shandong use?
22 are recorded here, A to Y. A retired or reassigned letter keeps its note in the table.

Related

Sources for Shandong

  1. Wikipedia (Chinese), 中华人民共和国民用机动车号牌 (Civil motor-vehicle registration plates of the People's Republic of China). Read . Carries the complete province-by-province table of issuing-office letters, with the retired and renumbered series footnoted to Chinese news and public-security sources. Used as a finding aid; wording here is our own.
  2. Wikipedia, Vehicle registration plates of China. Read . English list of prefixes; the article flags its own list as incomplete, so it is used here to cross-check the Chinese table rather than as the primary record.