Zhoushuizi was originally an insect-infested marsh, called "Choushuizi" (???) or "smelly waters" by nearby residents. During the late Qing dynasty, it became a racecourse for horse racing. After the marsh was drained, it was renamed Zhoushuizi (Zhou's waters) after a nearby village called Zhoujiatun ("Zhou family village"). After Japan won the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, the Liaodong Peninsula, including Dalian, came under Japanese occupation. In 1924, the Japanese began to convert Zhoushuizi Racecourse into an airport, which was opened in 1927. Immediately after the aviation law of 1927, the Japanese Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications began planning for scheduled air routes including Tokyo to Dalian (Zhoushuizi). As civil aviation developed later, a few flights per day by Manchukuo National Airways came to Zhoushuizi. After the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, there was more military traffic by the Imperial Japanese Navy than civil traffic, mostly using Douglas DC-3. Zhoushuizi Airport at that time was about 800 meters (2,625 ft) long and 400 meters (1,312 ft) wide. After the surrender of Japan in 1945, Zhoushuizi was under the control of the Soviet Air Forces for ten years, until it was transferred to the Chinese PLA Air Force in May 1955. In 1973, the military Zhoushuizi airfield was converted into a small civil airport, with a 2,040-meter (6,693 ft)-long runway and 37 employees, serving 1,961 passengers a year. As air traffic skyrocketed starting in the 1980s and especially since the 1990s, the airport had its first major expansion in April 1984. It was then expanded four more times, in 1992–93, 1999, 2005, and 2011–12. It served more than 13 million passengers in 2012, ranking 15th in China. Because of the expansion of the city of Dalian, the airport is now surrounded by built-up urban area and has no more room to grow as it reached its capacity in 2016. As a result, the authorities launched the new Dalian Jinzhouwan International Airport project, which was included in the 12th national five-year plan in 2011.