Guangzhou, often known as Canton, is the capital of southern China’s Guangdong Province. Long a major port city and commercial gateway to southern China, it has an extensive history of foreign contact, reaching back to Arab traders of the Tang period, through British merchants of the 19th century and on to today’s multinational participants in the famous biannual Trade Fairs. In turn, Guangzhou and surrounding regions sent the bulk of overseas emigrants in the 19th century to found the Chinatowns of major cities around the world.

Cantonese culture has maintained strong distinctions from the rest of China not only in its cosmopolitanism and entrepreneurial spirit, but in its formidably complex dialect and world-famous cuisine.

Guangzhou is nicknamed the “City of Five Rams,” which derives from a legend that it was founded when Five Immortals riding five rams descended to each plan a sheaf of grain there, symbolizing its never-ending prosperity. On firmer historical ground, an administrative city then called Panyu occupied this site by the 3rd century BC, serving as the capital of the Nanyue Kingdom founded in the region by a breakaway commander from the Qin Empire.

The recently discovered Nanyue royal tomb of his grandson have yielded some of the most exquisite jade carvings ever produced in China’s 5,000 year long history of jade working. Already by the earlier centuries AD Guangzhou was an important international port and trading center, with merchants and traders from Southeast Asia and as far away as Rome came to buy silk or to sell spices and incense. Guangzhou was part of the “Maritime Silk Road” that linked southern China with Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East, and the east coast of Africa. Arab traders introduced Islam into Guangzhou in the 7th century, making it the site of China’s first mosque and founding a Muslim community that survived down to the present day.

Guangzhou’s long-standing commercial and entrepreneurial spirit reemerged after the economic liberalization policies of the 1980’s were put into effect. Along with nearby Special Economic Zones like Shenzhen, Guangzhou took advantage of the financial might and international experience of nearby Hong Kong, along with an inexpensive, migrant labor force from the countryside, to become a leading industrial and manufacturing center for southern China.