Canton History
2013-10-10 23:51:51

Before Qin Dynasty, Canton was still a barbarian place. Started from Qin Dynasty(214 BC), NANHAI is promoted as the county and begin the civilization grow. NANHAI is the source of Canton civilization. At that time, PANYU was the capital of NANHAI and is also the centre of Guangzhou and Foshan. The cilivalization covered the central, northern and eastern of Guandong. In 9th year of Xu Dynasty (AD 589), NANHAI County is cancelled, Guangzhou management region was set up. In 601AD, changed to Fanzhou. In 607AD, changed back to NANHAI county again. NANHAI county manage the Cantonese speaking zone including the present cities named Guangzhou, Foshan, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Jiangmen, Qingyuan, Shaoguan, Hongkong, Macau. At that time, it also manage 15 counties including Qujiang, Xixing, Wengyuan, Zengcheng, Baoan, Lechang, Sihui,Huameng, Qingyuan, Hankuai, Zhengbing, Huiji, Xinhui, Yining. According to the " Guangnan Dong Lu" of "Yu Di Guang Ji " vol. 35, NANHAI and PANYU were two counties both managed by Guangzhou Management Region up to the end of Qing Dynasty. It was the economy and cultural centre of Guangdong and Canton region.



Broad entrance of Pearl River, plus the concentrated tributary, unique geographical environment and waterway shipping conditions, making Nanhai County become the gateway of Canton Area in ancient China. According to the archeology estimation, in the period between Qin Dynasty and Han Dynasty, Nanhai County has shipbuilding bases that could had the capacity to build 30 ships of 60 tone each. This reflected that Southern people had gasped the navigation technique. The sea trade between Nanhai County and oversea was very boom, the foot print reached South China, Malaysia, Indochina,Peninsula and Sri Lanka, a “Maritime silk road” was established. As recorded by “Han Shu”, a lot of wealthy people traded valuable items such as jewellery, metals and clothes at that time.

As a gateway, Nanhai County reached the peak in Tang Dynasty. It was ranked the 3rd in the top 10 cities, just behind Beijing and London. In Qing Dynasty, it was also the only foreign gateway in China. Both local Chinese and foreign people were gathered in Nanhai, created the unique Nanhai culture. Since Nanhai’s unique role of foreign exchange and economic development, it established the key position in ancient China. And Nanhai also became “Canton” at the eye of ancient foreigners.

As the southern gateway of ancient China, Nanhai possessed plenty of natural resources and hardworking work forces and established a lot of industry such as silkworm breeding porcelain making, tetile and clothing and machinery manufacturing etc. These industries provided major trading goods for Nanhai ports. On one hand, Nanhai became the sources of Canton culture, inherited 500 Southern China history, 300 years old arts of Chinese drama, unique Canton big four gardens constructions, famous kong-fu city, and Canton medicine city. On the other hand, Nanhai gathered the foreign merchants, was the communication centre and became the centre of Canton culture with a characteristics of “Honest, open, tolerance, and creative”. Nanhai was the pioneer and thinker of the recent revolution in China. It also built China’s modern industries and private enterprises.



Since 1842, 5 ports trading was started, the position of Nanhai trading was superseded by other ports. The development speed of Nanhai was slow down. However, the momentum restarts in 21 century. A lot of fortune and knowledge has been accumulated. The creative Nanhai spirit is re-started and Nanhai becomes the most energetic region in china economy. It creates today’s fortune of Nanhai people and successfully re-position Nanhai as the centre of Canton development.