Guangzhou (redirected from Kwangchow)

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.

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Guangzhou

 or Kuang-chou conventional Canton

City (pop., 2003 est.: 4,653,131), capital of Guangdong province, China. Located on the Zhu (Pearl) River about 90 mi (145 km) from the sea, it is southern China's chief port. Incorporated into China's Qin empire (221–207 BC), it later became an important city under the Ming dynasty. The first Chinese seaport opened to foreigners, it was regularly visited by Arab and Hindu traders and, in the 16th century, by the Portuguese. The English arrived in the 17th century, followed by the French and Dutch. Guangzhou's resistance to the English opium trade led to war (1839–42), and it was occupied by the British and French in 1856–61. In the late 19th century it was the seat of revolutionary political ideas promoted by the Nationalist Party. It was bombed and then occupied by the Japanese in 1938–45. Its industrial growth subsequently expanded, and, with China's renewed ties to the West from the late 1970s, it became one of several economic investment areas for foreigners. One of China's largest cities, its expanding economy added to the region's growth.