Guangzhou

"Canton, China" redirects here. For the province in China, see Guangdong.

Guangzhou (simplified Chinese: 广州; traditional Chinese: 廣州; pinyin: Guǎngzhōu; Wade–Giles: Kuang-chou; Postal System Pinyin: Canton) is the capital of Guangdong Province in southern China. The city was formerly known internationally as Canton City or simply Canton, after a French language transliteration of the name of the province in Cantonese. It is a port on the Pearl River, navigable to the South China Sea. As of the 2000 census, the city has a population of 9.94 million, making it the most populous city in the province and the fifth most populous in the People's Republic of China (PRC).

Name

The Chinese abbreviation of Guangzhou is Sui (穗; pinyin: sùi; Jyutping: seoi6; Yale: seuīh) or sometimes GZ. This city has the nicknames of Wuyangcheng (city of five rams), Yangcheng (city of rams), Huacheng (city of flowers), or Suicheng. The city can also be referred to as the WuMengCheng (City of Wood Wools), a reference to a tall, native tree that produces wool fiber in its gorgeous red blossoms.

"Canton" was the convenient French romanisation for Europeans who during the colonial period generally did not understand ideographic characters (see exonym and endonym). When the term "Canton" is pronounced in French it provides a closer oral rendering of the name in its original Cantonese. Guangzhou is a Mandarin pronunciation of the Han ideographs.

Geography

Guangzhou is located at 112°57'E to 114°3'E and 22°26'N to 23°56'N. The city is part of the Pearl River Delta.

Administrative divisions

Guangzhou is a sub-provincial city. It has direct jurisdiction over ten districts and two county-level cities.

District

As of April 28, 2005, the districts of Dongshan and Fangcun have been abolished and merged into Yuexiu and Liwan respectively; at the same time the district of Nansha is established out of parts of Panyu, and the district of Luogang is established out of parts of Baiyun, Tianhe, Huangpu, and Zengcheng.

History

It is believed that the first city built at the site of Guangzhou was Panyu (番禺; the locals pronounced this in Cantonese as Poon Yu) founded in 214 BC. The city has been continuously occupied since that time. Panyu was expanded when it became the capital of the Nanyue Kingdom (南越) in 206 BC.

The Han Dynasty annexed Nanyue in 111 BC, and Panyu became a provincial capital and remains so until this day. In 226 AD, the city became the seat of the Guang Prefecture (廣州; Guangzhou). Therefore, "Guangzhou" was the name of the prefecture, not of the city. However, people grew accustomed to calling the city Guangzhou, instead of Panyu.

Arabs ¹ and Persians sacked Guangzhou (known to them as Sin-Kalan) in AD 758, ² according to a local Guangzhou government report on October 30 758, which corresponded to the day of Guisi (癸巳) of the ninth lunar month in the first year of the Qianyuan era of Emperor Suzong of the Tang Dynasty. ³

During the Northern Song Dynasty, a celebrated poet called Su Shi visited Guangzhou's Baozhuangyan Temple and wrote the inscription "Liu Rong" (Six Banyan Trees) because of the six banyan trees he saw there. It has since been called the Temple of the Six Banyan Trees.

In 1711, the British East India Company established a trading post in Guangzhou. The Qianlong Emperor restricted foreign traders to a district in Guangzhou under the Canton System in 1760.

Guangzhou was one of the five Chinese treaty ports opened by the Treaty of Nanking (signed in 1842) at the end of the First Opium War between United Kingdom and China. The other ports were Fuzhou, Xiamen, Ningbo and Shanghai.

In 1918, "Guangzhou" became the official name of the city, when an urban council was established in Guangzhou. Panyu became a county's name south of Guangzhou. In both 1930 and 1953, Guangzhou was promoted to the status of a Municipality, but each promotion was cancelled within the year. Japanese troops occupied Guangzhou between October 12, 1938 and September 16, 1945.

After the communist take-over, urban renewal projects in the city improved the lives of many residents. New housing on the shores of the Pearl River provided homes for the poor boat people. Reforms by Deng Xiaoping, who came to power in the late 1970s, led to rapid economic growth due to the city's close proximity to Hong Kong and access to the Pearl River.

As labor costs increased in Hong Kong, manufacturers opened new plants in the cities of Guangdong including Guangzhou. As the largest city in one of China's wealthiest provinces, Guangzhou attracts farmers from the countryside looking for factory work. Cantonese links to overseas Chinese and beneficial tax reforms of the 1990s have aided the city's rapid growth.

In 2000, Huadu and Panyu were merged into Guangzhou as districts, and Conghua and Zengcheng became county-level cities of Guangzhou.

Astronomical phenomena

The previous total solar eclipse as seen from Guangzhou (downtown) was Solar eclipse of 1814-Jul-17 (July 17, 1814).

Modern Guangzhou

Economy

Guangzhou is the economic centre of the Pearl River Delta, placing it in the heart of one of mainland China's leading commercial and manufacturing regions.

In 2003, the GDP per capita was ¥38,568 (about US $4,660), ranking the city eighth among 659 Chinese cities.

The Chinese Export Commodities Fair, also called "Canton Fair", is held each spring and autumn by Bo Liu. Inaugurated in the spring of 1957, the Fair is a major event for the city.

Transportation

The Guangzhou Metro opened in 1999.

Guangzhou's main airport is the New Baiyun International Airport in Huadu District, that opened on 5 August 2004 replacing old Baiyun International Airport close to the city centre.

Guangzhou is connected to Hong Kong by train, bus and ferry services. Express trains arrive in Hong Kong at the Hung Hom KCR station. They cover the 182 km route in approximately two hours. Daily ferry sailings include an overnight steamer, which takes eight hours, and high-speed catamarans and hydrofoils which take three hours to reach the China Ferry Terminal or Macau Ferry Pier in Hong Kong.