Guangzhou (Canton), Shenzen, Dongguan

No urban area in China better represents the modern market-driven economy of China than the southern tier of cities located on the Zhujiang Sanjiaozhou (Pearl River Delta), upriver from Hong Kong. The largest of these cities, and historically the heart of the region, is Guangzhou.

Guangzhou hosted trade with several foreign countries throughout the 18th century; during that time, the city was the primary conduit for China’s contact with the outside world. After the First Opium War with the British, however, the resulting Treaty of Nanking opened up foreign trade in four other Chinese port cities. Shortly thereafter, Guangzhou began to lose its dominant foreign trade position to Shanghai.

The city is associated with leaders of rebellions that helped to bring down the Qing Dynasty. The most prominent of these was Sun Yat-sen, who was the first provisional president of the Republic of China and is often called the “father of modern China.” Originally a physician, Sun founded National Guangdong University in Guangzhou shortly before his death in 1925. Today, the academic institution is known as Sun Yat-sen University and is the most highly rated university in southern China.

As in the past, trade continues to be the linchpin of Guangzhou’s economy. With strong rail and road links in both inland China and coastal Hong Kong, as well as excellent port facilities, Guangzhou is a hub for the movement of the many industrial and consumer goods produced in southern Chinese cities (including Guangzhou itself). Since 1957, the city has hosted the biannual Chinese Export Commodities Fair, the largest trade fair in mainland China.

South of Guangzhou, on the eastern side of the Zhujiang Sanjiaozhou (Pearl River Delta), lie the cities of Dongguan and Shenzhen. Neither of these cities receives much mention in tourism guides, except perhaps as possible day-long shopping excursions from Guangzhou and Hong Kong, respectively. Nonetheless, they are the fastest growing urban areas in all of China. Shenzhen is located just north of Hong Kong on the border with the Hong Kong Special Administrative Area. It has transformed from a small-sized Chinese city to the country’s 4th most populous city in 25 years, with its population growing at average annual rates of over 19% throughout the 1990s. Dongguan, to its north, has grown at a rate less than half this amount, but still much faster than the average Chinese city of its size. It is currently the 9th most populated city in China.

Both cities attract workers from outside the region because of their numerous manufacturing jobs, and both have an extensive “unofficial” population. For example, less than 20% of Shenzhen’s citizens have a Shenzhen hukou (residency permit), which eases access to the city’s social services and public institutions such as colleges.

Dongguan has a similar ratio of migrant workers to registered residents.

In 1980, Shenzhen was the first of the Chinese Special Economic Zones to be established by former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping due to its close proximity to Hong Kong. Subsequently, it has become one of China’s leading ports. Its unique geographical position at the head of Hong Kong’s Kowloon Peninsula allows Shenzhen to have deep-water container port terminals on both the city’s eastern and western sides.