Guangzhou

 

(gwäng'jō') or Canton (kăn'tŏn', kăn'tŏn') , city (1994 est. pop. 3,113,800), capital of Guangdong prov., S China, a major deepwater port on the Pearl River delta.

Economy

Among the largest cities in the country, Guangzhou is the transportation, industrial, financial, and trade center of S China. It is a special economic development zone and an important trading point with Hong Kong. It has an integrated steel complex, paper mills, a long-established textile industry (silk, cotton, jute, and more recently synthetic fibers), and factories producing tractors, machinery, machine tools, newsprint, refined sugar, small appliances, tires, bicycles, sports equipment, porcelain, cement, and chemicals.

Traditional arts and crafts, principally ivory and jade carvings, are still produced. The hub of water transportation along the Pearl River, it is the southern terminus of the Guangzhou-Wuhan RR. It has a large international airport and is linked with Hong Kong by the Guangzhou-Jiulong RR. Highways completed in the 1990s connect it with cities on the coast. Guangzhou is one of the marketplaces for China's world trade; great national trade expositions, held there every spring and fall (since 1957), attract thousands of business people from all over the world.

Points of Interest

The city is also a cultural and educational center with several institutions of higher learning, notably Sun Yat-sen (Sun Zhongshan) Univ. and Jinan Univ. Tourist attractions include a large pagoda overlooking the river, now a museum of ceramics; the huge Temple of the Six Banyan Trees; and a park, with pavilions, commemorating the 1927 conflict between the Communists and the Kuomintang. Its museums include the Guangzhou Municipal Museum, the Sun Yat-sen Museum, and the museum of the Peasant Movement Institute. Nearby are Conghua hot springs and an important army base.

History

Guangzhou became a part of China in the 3d cent. B.C. Hindu and Arab merchants reached Guangzhou in the 10th cent., and the city became the first Chinese port regularly visited by European traders. In 1511, Portugal secured a trade monopoly, but it was broken by the British in the late 17th cent.; in the 18th cent. the French and Dutch were also admitted. Trading, however, was restricted until the Treaty of Nanjing (1842) following the Opium War, which opened the city to foreign trade. Following a disturbance, French and British forces occupied Guangzhou in 1856. Later the island of Shameen (Shamian) was ceded to them for business and residential purposes, and this reclaimed sandbank with its broad avenues, gardens, and fine buildings was known for its beauty; it was restored to China in 1946.

Guangzhou was the seat of the revolutionary movement under Sun Yat-sen in 1911; the Republic of China was proclaimed there. From Guangzhou the Nationalist armies of Chiang Kai-shek marched northward in the 1920s to establish a government in Nanjing. In 1927, Guangzhou was briefly the seat of one of the earliest Communist communes in China. The fall of Guangzhou to the Communist armies in late Oct., 1949, signaled the Communist takeover of all China. Under the Communist government, Guangzhou was developed as an industrial center and a modern port, with a great trade to and from Hong Kong.

Guangzhou
Simplified Chinese:	广州
Traditional Chinese:	廣州
Cantonese Jyutping:	Gwong² zau1
Hanyu Pinyin:	Guǎngzhōu
Transliterations Kejia (Hakka) - Romanization: [gong31 zu24] Mandarin - Hanyu Pinyin: Guǎngzhōu - Wade-Giles: Kuang-chou  [Listen]? - Postal Map: Canton Min - Min-nan POJ: kńg-chiu Yue (Cantonese) - Jyutping: Gwong² zau1

Guangzhou
An Overview of Guangzhou
Nickname: The Flower City
Location within China
Coordinates: 23°06′32″N 113°15′53″E / 23.10889, 113.26472
Country	People's Republic of China
Province	Guangdong
Officiated	1918
Government
- Mayor	Zhang Guangning
Area
- City	km²  ( sq mi)
Elevation	m ( ft)
Population (2000)[citation needed]
- Urban
- Metro
Time zone	UTC ([[UTC+8]])
Website: http://www.guangzhou.gov.cn/

Guangzhou is the capital and the sub-provincial city of Guangdong Province in the southern part of the People's Republic of China. The city is also known by an older English-language name, Canton. It is a port on the Pearl River, navigable to the South China Sea, and is located about 120 km (75 miles) northwest of Hong Kong. As of the 2000 census, the city has a population of 6 million, and a metropolitan population of roughly 8.5 million (though some estimates are as high as 12.6 million)^{[citation needed]} making it the most populous city in the province and the third most populous metropolitan area in mainland China.

Name

The Chinese abbreviation of Guangzhou is Sui (穗; pinyin: sùi; Jyutping: seoi6; Yale: seuīh) or sometimes GZ. The city has the nicknames of Wuyangcheng (City of Five Rams), Yangcheng (City of Rams), Huacheng (City of Flowers), or Suicheng (City of Wheats). The city can also be referred to as the MuMianCheng (City of Ceiba).

"Canton" was the convenient Portuguese or French romanisation of "Guangdong" Province.^{[citation needed]} The city Guangzhou is the capital of the province and frequently referred as 廣東省城 ("the Canton Province Capital City") or simply 省城 ("the Province City") by Cantonese people. The city naturally represents the province and thus was erroneously used as the city's name. It may have been more convenient for Europeans who during the colonial period generally did not understand Chinese nor the written logo graphic characters (see exonym and endonym). Guangzhou is the pinyin Romanization of the Mandarin name for the city.

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.

Districts

• Yuexiu District
• Liwan District
• Haizhu District
• Tianhe District
• Baiyun District
• Huangpu District
• Huadu District
• Panyu District
• Nansha District
• Luogang District

County-level cities

• Zengcheng City
• Conghua City

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 (蕃禺, later simplified to 番禺; Poon Yu in Cantonese) 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.

Recent archaeological founding of her palace suggests that the city might have traded frequently with by foreigners by the sea routes. The foreign trade continued through every following dynasty and the city remains a major international trading port to this day.

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 however 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.

Although the Chinese name of Guangzhou replaced Panyu as the name of the walled city, Panyu was still the name of the area surrounding the walled city until the end of Qing era.

Arab and Persian pirates 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.^[1][2][3]

During the Northern Song Dynasty, a celebrated poet called Su Shi (Shisu) 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.

The Portuguese were the first Europeans to arrive to the city by sea, establishing a monopoly on the external trade out of its harbour by 1511. They were later expelled from their settlements in Guangzhou (in Portuguese Canton or Cantao), but instead granted use of Macau (first occupied in 1511) as a trade base with the city in 1557. They would keep a near monopoly of foreign trade in the region until the arrival of the Dutch in the early seventeenth century.

After China claimed control of Taiwan in 1683, the Qing government became open to encouraging foreign trade. Guangzhou quickly emerged as one of the most adaptable ports for negotiating commerce and before long, many foreign ships were going there to procure cargos. Portuguese in Macau, Spanish in Manila, and Armenians and Muslims from India were already actively trading in the port by the 1690s, when the French and English British East India Company's ships began frequenting the port through the Canton System. Other companies were soon to follow: the Ostend General India company in 1717; Dutch East India Company in 1729; the first Danish ship in 1731, which was followed by a Danish Asiatic Company ship in 1734; the Swedish East India Company in 1732; followed by an occasional Prussian and Trieste Company ship; the Americans in 1784; and the first ships from Australia in 1788. By the middle of the 18th century, Guangzhou had emerged as one of the world's great trading ports under the Thirteen Factories, which was a distinction it maintained until the outbreak of the Opium Wars in 1839 and the opening of other ports in China in 1842. The privilege during this period made Guangzhou one of the top 3 cities in the world.^[4]

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

In 1918, "Guangzhou" formally became the official name of the city, when an urban council was established in it. Panyu became a county's name to the southern side of Guangzhou. In both 1930 and 1953, Guangzhou was promoted to the status of a Municipality, but each time promotion was cancelled within the year.

Japanese troops occupied Guangzhou from 1938-10-12 to 1945-09-16, after violent bombings. The Imperial Japanese Army established in the city the bacteriological research unit 8604, a section of unit 731, where Japanese doctors experimented on human prisoners.

Communist forces entered the city on October 14, 1949. Their urban renewal projects improved the lives of some 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.

Modern Guangzhou

Economy

This article or section needs to be updated. Parts of this article or section are no longer up to date. Please update the article to reflect recent events, and remove this template when finished.

Guangzhou is the economic centre of the Pearl River Delta and is the heart of one of mainland China's leading commercial and manufacturing regions. In 2006, the GDP exceeded ¥600 billions (USD 76.8 billions), per capita was ¥85,000 (about US $11,000), ranking First among the other 659 Chinese cities.^{[citation needed]}

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

With the Guangzhou Metro, opened in 1999, Guangzhou is the fourth city in China to build an underground railway system. Currently there are four lines operational with an ambitious plan to expand rapidly with three lines under construction and four lines that are being planned.

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 depart to Hong Kong from the Guangzhou East railway station and 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. The new Nansha Pier (新南沙客运港) is now open with 6 lines daily traveling between Hong Kong and Guangzhou. The trip takes 75 minutes (¥116-230). However, Nansha is very far from the city center, although there is a bus route available from White Swan Hotel, running three times a day. Location Nansha Port: 1.6km South from Humen Bridge, Nansha District, Guangzhou. Passengers can take buses at White Swan Hotel to the Dock, 3 runs per day.

Schedule: Nansha to Hongkong: 09:30　 11:00　 12:00　 15:00 　16:00　 17:30 Hongkong to Nansha: 08:00　 08:20　 09:00　 13:00　 14:00 　15:30 Tickets: Economic ¥116.00, Business ¥170.00, VIP ¥230.00

Since Monday, 1 January 2007, the city government has banned motorcycles from the urban area. From Tuesday, 16 January 2007, motorcycles found violating the ban will be confiscated.^[5] The Guangzhou traffic bureau has reported reduced traffic problems and accidents since the motorcycle ban in downtown area.^[6].

According to the newspaper China Daily of 6 July 2007, all buses and taxis of Guangzhou will be LPG-fueled by 2010 to promote clean energy for transportation and improve the environment ^[7].

Tourist attractions

• Chen Family Confucian Academy* Guangdong Museum of Folk Handcraft
• Shamian Island
• Guangdong Provincial Museum
• Museum of the Tomb of the King of Southern Yue in Western Han Dynasty
• Temple of the Six Banyan Trees
• Shishi Holy Heart Cathedral
• Huaisheng Mosque
• Chime-Long Paradise

Parks

• Baiyun Mountain (白云山)
• Lie shi ling yuan （烈士陵园）
• Yue Xiu Park (越秀公园)

Significant buildings

• Guangdong Olympic Stadium
• CITIC Plaza
• Guangzhou TV & Sightseeing Tower
• Guangzhou TV Tower
• China Hotel
• Pearl River Tower
• Guangzhou Zhujiang Brewery Group

Plans are also underway to build what will become the world's tallest free-standing 610m tall Guangzhou TV & Sightseeing Tower for the 2010 Asian Games.

Media

Guangdong and the greater metropolitan area is served by several Guangdong Radio stations and Guangdong TV. There is an international station Radio Guangdong which broadcasts information about this region to the entire world through the World Radio Network.

Culture

• Cantonese (linguistics)
• Cantonese cuisine
• Cantonese opera
• Guangdong music (genre)

Education

Major educational institutions

National

• Sun Yat-sen University (中山大学) (founded 1924)
• South China University of Technology (华南理工大学)
• Jinan University (暨南大学) (founded 1906)

Public

• Guangdong University of Foreign Studies (广东外语外贸大学)
• South China Agricultural University (华南农业大学) (founded 1909)
• Zhongkai Agrotechnical College (仲恺农业技术学院) (founded 1927)
• South China Normal University (华南师范大学)
• Shantou University (汕头大学)
• Guangzhou Medical College (广州医学院)
• Guangzhou University of TCM (广州中医药大学) (English-language site)
• Guangdong College of Pharmacy (广东药学院)
• Guangdong University of Technology (广东工业大学)
• Guangzhou University (广州大学)
• Guangdong Institute of Science and Technology (广东省科技干部学院)
• Guangdong Business College (广东商学院)
• Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts (广州美术学院)
• Xinghai Conservatory of Music (星海音乐学院)
• GuangDong Polytechnic Normal University (广东技术师范学院)
• Guangzhou Physical Education Institute (广州体育学院)

Note: Institutions without full-time bachelor programs are not listed.

Sister cities

Canton is twinned with the following cities:

• Fukuoka, Japan (May 1979)
• Los Angeles, United States (March 2, 1982)
• Manila, Philippines (November 1982)
• Vancouver, Canada (March 1985)
• Sydney, Australia (May 1986)
• Bari, Italy (November 1986)
• Frankfurt am Main, Germany (April 11, 1988)
• Lyon, France (November 1988)
• Auckland, New Zealand, (February 1989)
• Gwangju, South Korea (October 1996)
• Linköping, Sweden (November 1997)
• Durban, South Africa (July 2000)
• Bristol, United Kingdom (May 2001)
• Yekaterinburg, Russia (July 10, 2002)
• Arequipa, Peru (October 27, 2004)
• Birmingham, United Kingdom (Dec 2006)
• Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Notes

1. ^ Welsh, Frank (1974). in Maya Rao: A Borrowed Place: The History of Hong Kong, 13. ISBN 1-56836-134-3. 
2. ^ Needham, Joseph (1954). Science & Civilisation in China. Cambridge University Press, 1, 179. 
3. ^ Sima Guang. Zizhi Tongjian (in Chinese). 
4. ^ Top 10 Cities of the Year 1800
5. ^ Life of Guangzhou - Guangzhou Bans Motorcycles
6. ^ Life of Guangzhou - Traffic Jam Improve after Motorcycle Ban
7. ^ [http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-07/06/content_911176.htm China Daily - Date set for LPG-fueled buses, taxis]

External links

• China Medical University
• (Chinese) Official Guangzhou Website
• Life of Guangzhou
• Photos from the Mountains
• Satellite photo of the city
• Guangzhou Photo Gallery
• Guangzhou TV & Sightseeing Tower
• http://www.nudieman.com/anrg/flower_pagoda.htm (A description of the Flower Pagoda)
• http://www.orientalarchitecture.com/ (With descriptions and many pictures of the: Chen Family Confucian Academy, Guangxiaosi Temple, Sun Yat-sen Memorial (1929-31), Wong Tai Sin Temple, Wuxianguan Temple, Zhenhai Tower)
• (Japanese) raildog in the attic-photo weblog
• Guangzhou travel guide from Wikitravel
• LPG

Preceded by Nanjing

Capital of the Republic of China (during Chinese Civil War) 1949

Succeeded by Chongqing

Prefecture-level divisions of Guangdong Sub-provincial cities: Guangzhou | Shenzhen Prefecture-level cities: Chaozhou | Dongguan | Foshan | Heyuan | Huizhou Jiangmen | Jieyang | Maoming | Meizhou | Qingyuan | Shantou | Shanwei Shaoguan | Yangjiang | Yunfu | Zhanjiang | Zhaoqing | Zhongshan | Zhuhai

List of Guangdong County-level divisions

Major cities of Greater China

People's Republic of China Direct-controlled municipalities Beijing · Chongqing · Shanghai · Tianjin Sub-provincial cities Changchun · Chengdu · Dalian · Guangzhou · Hangzhou  · Jinan · Harbin · Nanjing · Ningbo · Qingdao · Shenyang · Shenzhen · Wuhan · Xi'an · Xiamen Provincial capitals (not included above) Changsha · Fuzhou · Guiyang · Haikou · Hefei · Hohhot · Lanzhou · Lhasa · Nanchang · Nanning · Shijiazhuang · Taiyuan · Ürümqi · Xining · Yinchuan · Zhengzhou  · Kunming Special administrative regions Hong Kong · Macau Republic of China (Taiwan) Direct-controlled municipalities Kaohsiung · Taipei

zh-yue:廣州

Donate to Wikimedia