Located near the southernmost point of the Liaodong Peninsula, the city of Dalian came under the territorial control of the Russian Empire from 1898 until that country's defeat in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. The Russians called the city Dalniy (Russian: Дальний), which means “distant” or "remote", describing the city's location relative to the Russian heartland. The modern Chinese name, Dalian, comes from a Chinese reading of the Japanese colonial name Dairen, which itself was a loose transliteration of the Russian name Dalniy. Under Russian control, Dalniy grew into a vibrant port city; before its loss in 1905 it was one terminus of the Russian-controlled Chinese Eastern Railway.