Guangzhou, also known as Canton, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong in southern China. Located on the Pearl River, about 120 kilometres (75 mi) northwest of Hong Kong and 145 kilometres (90 mi) north of Macau, Guangzhou has a history of over 2,200 years and was a major terminus of the Silk Road.
The port of Guangzhou serves as a transportation hub. Guangzhou is also one of China's three largest cities. For a long time, it was the only Chinese port accessible to the Europeans. Guangzhou was captured by the British during the First Opium War and no longer enjoyed a monopoly after the war. Consequently, it lost trade to other ports such as Hong Kong and Shanghai, but continued to serve as a major entrepôt in China.
Guangzhou is at the center of the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macau Greater Bay Area, the most populous built-up metropolitan region in the world. The area extends into neighboring cities such as Foshan, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Shenzhen, parts of Jiangmen and Huizhou, as well as Zhuhai and Macau, forming an urban agglomeration of about 70 million residents. It is also part of the Pearl River Delta Economic Zone. Administratively, the city holds subprovincial status and is one of China's nine National Central Cities. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, nationals of sub-Saharan Africa who had initially settled in the Middle East and Southeast Asia moved in unprecedented numbers to Guangzhou in response to the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis. The domestic migrant population from other provinces of China in Guangzhou was 40% of the city's total population in 2008. Guangzhou has one of the most expensive real estate markets in China. As of the 2020 census, the registered population of the city's expansive administrative area was 18,676,605 individuals (up 47 percent from the previous census in 2010), of whom 16,492,590 lived in 9 urban districts (all but Conghua and Zengcheng). Due to worldwide travel restrictions at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, the major airport of Guangzhou, briefly became the world's busiest airport by passenger traffic in 2020. Guangzhou is the fifth most populous city by urban resident population in China after Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen and Chongqing.
In modern commerce, Guangzhou is best known for its annual Canton Fair, the oldest and largest trade fair in China. For three consecutive years (2013–2015), Forbes ranked Guangzhou as the best commercial city in mainland China. Guangzhou is highly ranked as an Alpha (global first-tier) city together with San Francisco and Stockholm. It is a major Asia-Pacific finance hub, ranking 21st globally in the 2020 Global Financial Centres Index. Guangzhou also has the fifth largest number of skyscrapers in the world. As an important international city, Guangzhou has hosted numerous international and national sporting events, the most notable being the 2010 Asian Games, the 2010 Asian Para Games, and the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup. The city hosts 65 foreign representatives, making it the major city hosting the third most foreign representatives in China, after Beijing and Shanghai. As of 2020, Guangzhou ranked 10th in the world and 5th in China—after Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Shenzhen—for the number of billionaire residents by the Hurun Global Rich List. Guangzhou is one of the nation's leading hubs for academia and academic research, ranking 6th globally, and is home to numerous Double First-Class Universities, including Sun Yat-sen University and SCUT.
Toponymy
Guǎngzhōu is the official romanization of the Chinese name 广州 in Mandarin Chinese. The name of the city is taken from the ancient Guǎng Prefecture after it had become the prefecture's seat of government. The character 廣 or 广 means 'broad' or 'expansive'.
Before acquiring its current name, the town was known as Panyu (Punyü; 番禺), a name still borne by one of Guangzhou's districts not far from the main city. The origin of the name is still uncertain, with 11 various explanations being offered, including that it may have referred to two local mountains. The city has also sometimes been known as Guangzhou Fu or Guangfu after its status as the capital of a prefecture. From this latter name, Guangzhou was known to medieval Persians such as Al-Masudi and Ibn Khordadbeh as Khanfu (خانفو). Under the Southern Han, the city was renamed Xingwang Fu (興王府).
The Chinese abbreviation for Guangzhou is 穗, pronounced Seoi6 in Cantonese and Suì in Mandarin—although the abbreviation on car license plates, as with the rest of the province, is 粤), after its nickname "City of Rice" (穗城). The city has long borne the nickname City of Rams (羊城) or City of the Five Rams (五羊城) from the five stones at the old Temple of the Five Immortals said to have been the sheep or goats ridden by the Taoist culture heroes credited with introducing rice cultivation to the area around the time of the city's foundation. The former name "City of the Immortals" (仙城/五仙城) came from the same story. The more recent City of Flowers (花城) is usually taken as a simple reference to the area's fine greenery.
The English name "Canton" derived from Portuguese Cidade de Cantão, a blend of dialectal pronunciations of "Guangdong" (e.g., Cantonese Gwong2-dung1). Although it originally and chiefly applied to the walled city, it was occasionally conflated with Guangdong by some authors. It was adopted as the Postal Map Romanization of Guangzhou, and remained the official name until its name change to "Guangzhou". As an adjective, it is still used in describing the people, language, cuisine and culture of Guangzhou and the surrounding Liangguang region. The 19th-century name was "Kwang-chow foo".
History
Prehistory
Prior to the Han conquest, the area of modern Guangzhou was inhabited by indigenous, non-Chinese tribes known collectively as the Baiyue.
A settlement now known as Nanwucheng was present in the area by 1100 BC. Some traditional Chinese histories placed Nanwucheng's founding during the reign of King Nan of Zhou, emperor of Zhou from 314 to 256 BC. It was said to have consisted of little more than a stockade of bamboo and mud.
Nanyue
Guangzhou, then known as Panyu, was founded on the eastern bank of the Pearl River in 214 BC. Ships commanded by tradespersons arrived on the South China coast in the late antiquity. Surviving records from the Tang dynasty confirm, that the residents of Panyu observed a range of trade missions. Records on foreign trade ships reach upon til the late 20th century.
Panyu was the seat of Qin Empire's Nanhai Commandery, and served as a base for the first invasion of the Baiyue lands in southern China. Legendary accounts claimed that the soldiers at Panyu were so vigilant that they did not remove their armor for three years. Upon the fall of the Qin, General Zhao Tuo established the kingdom of Nanyue and made Panyu its capital in 204 BC. It remained independent throughout the Chu-Han Contention, although Zhao negotiated recognition of his independence in exchange for his nominal submission to the Han in 196 BC. Archeological evidence shows that Panyu was an expansive commercial center: in addition to items from central China, archeologists have found remains originating from Southeast Asia, India, and even Africa. Zhao Tuo was succeeded by Zhao Mo and then Zhao Yingqi. Upon Zhao Yingqi's death in 115 BC, his younger son Zhao Xing was named as his successor in violation of Chinese primogeniture. By 113 BC, his Chinese mother, the Empress Dowager Jiu (樛) had prevailed upon him to submit Nanyue as a formal part of the Han Empire. The native prime minister Lü Jia launched a coup, killing Han ambassadors along with the king, his mother, and their supporters. A successful ambush then annihilated a Han force which had been sent to arrest him. Emperor Wu of Han took offense and launched a massive riverine and seaborne war: six armies under Lu Bode and Yang Pu took Panyu and annexed Nanyue by the end of 111 BC.
Imperial China
Incorporated into the Han dynasty, Panyu became a provincial capital. In AD 226, it became the seat of Guang Prefecture, which gave it its modern name. The Old Book of Tang described Guangzhou as an important port in southern China. Direct routes connected the Middle East and China, as shown in the records of a Chinese prisoner returning home from Iraq twelve years after his capture at Talas. Relations were often strained: while China was undergoing the An Lushan Rebellion, Arab and Persian pirates sacked the city on 30 October 758 and in revenge thousands of Arabs and Persians were killed by Chinese rebels in the Yangzhou massacre (760). In the Guangzhou massacre about 200,000 Arab, Persian and other foreigners were killed by Chinese rebel Huang Chao in 878, along with the city's Jews, Christians, and Parsis. The port was closed for fifty years after its destruction.
Amid the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms that followed the collapse of the Tang dynasty, the Later Liang governor Liu Yan used his base at Panyu to establish a "Great Yue" or "Southern Han" empire, which lasted from 917 to 971. The region enjoyed considerable cultural and economic success in this period. From the 10th to 12th century, there are records that the large foreign communities were not exclusively men, but included "Persian females". According to Odoric of Pordenone, Guangzhou was as large as three Venices in terms of area, and rivaled all of Italy in the amount of crafts produced. He also noted the large amount of ginger available as well as large geese and snakes. Guangzhou was visited by the Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta during his journey around the world in the 14th century. He detailed the process by which the Chinese constructed their large ships in the port's shipyards.
Shortly after the Hongwu Emperor's declaration of the Ming dynasty, he reversed his earlier support of foreign trade and imposed the first of a series of sea bans. These banned private foreign trade upon penalty of death for the merchant and exile for his family and neighbors. Previous maritime intendancies of Guangzhou, Quanzhou, and Ningbo were closed in 1384 and legal trade became limited to the tribute delegations sent to or by official representatives of foreign governments.
Following the Portuguese conquest of the Melaka Sultanate, Rafael Perestrello traveled to Guangzhou as a passenger on a native junk in 1516. His report induced Fernão Pires de Andrade to sail to the city with eight ships the next year, but De Andrade's exploration was understood as spying and his brother Simão and others began attempting to monopolize trade, enslaving Chinese women and children, engaging in piracy, and fortifying the island of Tamão. Rumors even circulated that Portuguese were eating the children. The Guangzhou administration was charged with driving them off: they bested the Portuguese at the Battle of Tunmen and in Xicao Bay; held a diplomatic mission hostage in a failed attempt to pressure the restoration of the sultan of Malacca, who had been accounted a Ming vassal; and, after placing them in cangues and keeping them for most of a year, ultimately executed 23 by lingchi. With the help of local pirates, the "Folangji" then carried out smuggling at Macao, Lampacau, and St John's Island (now Shangchuan), until Leonel de Sousa legalized their trade with bribes to Admiral Wang Bo (汪柏) and the 1554 Luso-Chinese Accord. The Portuguese undertook not to raise fortifications and to pay customs dues; three years later, after providing the Chinese with assistance suppressing their former pirate allies, the Portuguese were permitted to warehouse their goods at Macau instead of Guangzhou itself.
In October 1646, the Longwu Emperor's brother, Zhu Yuyue fled by sea to Guangzhou, the last stronghold of the Ming empire. On December 11, he declared himself the Shaowu Emperor, borrowing his imperial regalia from local theater troupes. He led a successful offense against his cousin Zhu Youlang but was deposed and executed on January 20, 1647, when the Ming turncoat Li Chengdong (李成棟) sacked the city on behalf of the Qing.
In May 1648, Li Chengdong rebelled against the Qing and declared his allegiance to the Southern Ming, making Guangzhou a base for the Ming loyalist resurgence in southern China. On 24 November 1650, after a prolonged siege during the Qing conquest of southern China, Shang Kexi's forces captured Guangzhou and launched a large-scale massacre of Ming loyalists and civilians, killing up to 70,000 people.
The Qing became somewhat more receptive to foreign trade after gaining control of Taiwan in 1683. The Portuguese from Macau and Spaniards from Manila returned, as did private Muslim, Armenian, and English traders. From 1699 to 1714, the French and British East India Companies sent a ship or two each year; the Austrian Ostend General India Co. arrived in 1717, the Dutch East India Co. in 1729, the Danish Asiatic Co. in 1731, and the Swedish East India Co. the next year. These were joined by the occasional Prussian or Trieste Company vessel. The first independent American ship arrived in 1784, and the first colonial Australian one in 1788. By that time, Guangzhou was one of the world's greatest ports, organized under the Canton System. The main exports were tea and porcelain. As a meeting place of merchants from all over the world, Guangzhou became a major contributor to the rise of the modern global economy. Guangzhou is the site of the Thirteen Factories, which were the only legal place to conduct foreign trade with China from 1757 to 1842.
In the 19th century, most of the city's buildings were still only one or two stories. However, there were notable exceptions such as the Flower Pagoda of the Temple of the Six Banyan Trees, and the guard tower known as the Five-Story Pagoda. The subsequently urbanized northern hills were bare and covered with traditional graves. The brick city walls were about 6 miles (10 km) in circumference, 25 feet (8 m) high, and 20 feet (6 m) wide. Its eight main gates and two water gates all held guards during the day and were closed at night. The wall rose to incorporate a hill on its northern side and was surrounded on the other three by a moat which, along with the canals, functioned as the city's sewer, emptied daily by the river's tides. A partition wall with four gates divided the northern "old town" from the southern "new town" closer to the river; the suburb of Xiguan (Saikwan; "West Gate") stretched beyond and the boats of fishers, traders, and Tanka ("boat people") almost entirely concealed the riverbank for about 4 miles (6 km). It was common for homes to have a storefront facing the street and to treat their courtyards as a kind of warehouse. The city was part of a network of signal towers so effective that messages could be relayed to Beijing—about 1,200 miles (1,931 km) away—in less than 24 hours.