Guangdong is an up-and-coming province in the deep south of China, characterized by industry and high technology.
Guangdong Province is an important technology location in China
Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Zhanjiang are important port cities in Guangdong
Guangzhou Airport is the third largest in China
Guangdong: Geographical location of the province
Guangdong - Guangdong Province is located in southeast China. The provincial capital is the metropolis of Guangzhou with just over 15 million inhabitants. At the same time, Guangzhou is the largest city in the Pearl River Delta, where several cities have formed a huge megalopolis with up to 60 million people. The entire province is characterized by an urban settlement structure. As early as 2010, Guangdong had over 10 million cities. On the administrative level, Guangdong is divided into a total of 21 prefecture-level cities.
From a topographical point of view, around a quarter of the province is characterized by the flat landscape of the Pearl River Delta.
This is particularly true of the coastal regions.
The rest of the province is made up of rolling hills.
Guangdong borders the South China Sea to the south.
In the northern parts of the province, on the other hand, mountains and plateaus dominate, such as the Nanling Mountains, which form a natural northern border of the province.
At a height of 1,902 meters, the Shikengkong on the border with Hunan Province is the highest point in Guangdong.
Major cities with population in Guangdong Province:
Guangzhou 15.31 million (2019)
Shenzhen 12.9 million (2019)
Foshan 7.5 million (2019)
Shantou 4.9 million (2019)
Dongguan 7.6 million (2019)
Guangdong as an industrial location
To this day, the province of Guangdong plays an important role as an industrial location within China. For Hong Kong in particular, the province has served as an “extended workbench” since the country began to open up: Hong Kong companies relocated their production to the provinces or built factories there to expand. The main reason for this was the significantly lower wage costs. Guangdong also benefits from the special economic zones that have been set up in the cities of Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Shantou since 1980 in order to experiment with opening up to the world market.
Thus, Guangdong became the location primarily for various branches of light industry: toys, furniture, clothing, housewares, simple electronics. With the advent of information technology, smartphones and modern household appliances were added later. However, it was mainly manufactured under license for other brands.
Guangdong has been hugely successful with this model.
It became one of the wealthiest provinces in China.
In recent years, however, the role of the “workbench of the world” has not been satisfied there: Guangdong wants to climb the value chain.
More and more complex technological products are being developed and produced there.
A high-tech startup scene developed in the metropolis of Shenzhen.
Guangdong is, among other things, the location of the telecommunications equipment suppliers Huawei and ZTE as well as one of the world's largest manufacturers of civil drones DJI.
Major port cities in Guangdong Province
Several of China's most important seaports are located in Guangdong.
Above all, the overseas ports of Guangzhou, Zhanjiang, Shantou and Shenzhen, which are designed for container transport, are of considerable importance for the Chinese economy.
The ports of Shenzhen and Guangzhou in particular are increasingly competing with the port of Hong Kong.
In terms of pure container handling, Shenzhen is now the fourth largest port in the world, followed by Guangzhou.
Numerous large container shipping companies regularly offer liner services between the south-east Chinese province and Europe.
Hapag-Lloyd and the world's largest Danish shipping company Maersk Line should be mentioned here in particular.
Largest container ship docks at Yantian Port, #Shenzhen, 400m long, 58m wide, can carry 20,170 20 '#containers https://t.co/n84si44drO pic.twitter.com/TsaEtR5IX7
- Shenzhen (@ShenzhenCity) April 21, 2017
Guangdong: transportation infrastructure
Due to the ongoing economic boom, there is constant investment in the further expansion of the transport infrastructure.
In addition to the ports on the coast, the road network in Guangdong Province is of enormous importance for trade and the transport of goods.
In no other Chinese region is the network of motorways more dense than in Guangdong.
The most modern trains in China run between the cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen - it was the first route on which China used the high-speed trains that are now racing across the country.
There are two major international airports in the province in Shenzhen and Guangzhou. The Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport was due to the Corona crisis in 2020, the airport temporarily even rose to the airport with the highest passenger volume in the world before Atlanta (USA). In 2020 alone, over 40 million people flew from there - but most of them domestically. China fought the corona pandemic faster than other countries; however, international travel remained severely restricted in 2021. The airport serves as an important hub for the local airline China Southern Airlines. The southern Chinese airline accounts for almost 30% of the flight connections.
In addition to passenger connections, Guangzhou Baiyun Airport also serves as an important freight hub.
The US company FedEx has now set up its Asia-Pacific HUB at Guangzhou Airport.
In addition to FedEx, numerous other cargo airlines also serve the airport.
Guangdong: History of the Province
Guangdong first became part of the Chinese rule over 2000 years ago.
It was then that the first Qin imperial dynasty invaded the region.
Guangzhou was one of the ports Britain forced access to during the Opium Wars.
Guangdong was also significantly shaped by the colonial history of nearby Hong Kong from 1842.
In the period before and after the collapse of the Chinese Empire at the beginning of the 20th century, Guangdong was above all an important center of the republican opposition.
This was led by Sun Yat-sen and the nationalist Kuomintang party.
Sun and his colleagues founded the first Chinese republic in the early 20th century.
In the course of the next few decades, however, there were two civil wars, from which in 1949 a civil war, from which the Communist Party emerged victorious.
Guangdong temporarily lost its importance.
With the beginning of the reform policy, however, their rise began. The special economic zones unleashed people's business acumen and made it possible for them to be the first in China to interact with other countries. In 1992, reform patriarch Deng Xiaoping traveled to Guangdong on his now famous "Journey to the South" to cement his economic reform course there.