Guangdong
(2002 est. pop. 74 million). Located in southeast China, Guangdong Province covers an area of 196,891 square kilometers (76,000 square miles). It is bordered to the northeast by Fujian Province, to the north by the provinces of Jiangxi and Hunan, and to the west by the Guangxi Autonomous Region. A coastal province on the northern shores of the South China Sea, Guangdong has long played an important role in China's foreign trade—a role that was expanded after the opening of the country in the 1980s and the creation of the Special Economic Zones at Shenzhen, Shantou, and Zhuhai.
The area was first integrated into the Chinese empire during the Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE), although ethnic Han Chinese did not begin to settle there until the Tang era (618–907 CE). The region experienced a major influx of Han settlers during the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279), when migrants began to arrive after fleeing the Mongol invasion of northern China. In 1997 the majority (61.6 percent) of the province's population was ethnic Han Chinese, although minority peoples such as the Zhuang, Yao, Shui, Mulam, and Jing are present in sizable numbers, primarily in the mountainous regions of the interior. The main spoken dialect in the region is Cantonese. Another major dialect, Hakka, is the principal spoken tongue in the north and northeastern regions of the province.
Guangdong is also the point of origin for many overseas Chinese in North America and Southeast Asia, whose relatives left the province in search of work or to escape the political turmoil of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. During the late 1910s and early 1920s Guangzhou (Canton), the provincial capital, served as the headquarters of the Nationalists, first led by Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925), the province's most famous son, and following his death by Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975). It was from Guangzhou that Chiang Kai-shek launched the Northern Expedition in 1926 to unify China and end the warlord era.
Between the Tang and Qing dynasties (618–1912) Guangdong emerged as an important agricultural province within the empire, producing large volumes of rice, sugarcane, silk, and fruits, and also as a point of contact with the outside world. Guangzhou was one of China's first great trading centers, first visited by Arab merchants during the Tang dynasty and European merchants during the late Ming and early Qing periods. This tradition of commerce was reinvigorated in the post-Mao period, as Guangdong capitalized on its proximity to the former British colony of Hong Kong to become a primary point of entry for foreign investment and trade with the People's Republic of China. Guangdong stands as one of the best examples of China's ability to move from a state-planned to a market economy that is open to the outside world.
Further Reading
Hook, Brian. (1996) Guangdong: China's Promised Land. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press.
Johnson, Graham E., and Glen Peterson. (1999) Historical Dictionary of Guangzhou (Canton) and Guangdong. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow.
Lin, Alfred. (1997) The Rural Economy of Guangdong, 1870– 1937. New York: St. Martin's.
State Statistical Bureau. (1998) China Statistical Yearbook. Beijing: China Statistical Publishing House.
Vogel, Ezra. (1989) One Step Ahead in China: Guangdong under Reform. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Yeung, Yue-man, and David K. Y. Chu, eds. (1998) Guangdong: Survey of a Province Undergoing Rapid Change. 2d ed. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press.
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