1.
Guangdong
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Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the Peoples Republic of China. The provincial capital Guangzhou and economic hub Shenzhen are among the most populous, the population increase since the census has been modest, the province at 2014 end had 107,240,000 people. Since 1989, Guangdong has topped the total GDP rankings among all divisions, with Jiangsu and Shandong second. According to state statistics, Guangdongs GDP in 2014 reached RMB6,779 billion, or US$1.104 trillion, since 2011, Guangdong has the highest GDP among all provinces of Mainland China. The province contributes approximately 12% of the PRCs national economic output, Guangdong also hosts the largest import and export fair in China called the Canton Fair in Guangdongs capital city Guangzhou. Guǎng means expanse or vast, and has associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in AD226. Guangdong and neighbouring Guangxi literally mean expanse east and expanse west, together, Guangdong and Guangxi are called Loeng gwong. During the Song dynasty, the Two Guangs were formally separated as Guǎngnán Dōnglù and Guǎngnán Xīlù, one should note that Canton, though etymologically derived from Cantão, refers only to the provincial capital instead of the whole province, as documented by authoritative English dictionaries. The local people of the city of Guangzhou and their language are commonly referred to as Cantonese in English. Because of the prestige of Canton and its accent, Cantonese sensu lato can also be used for the phylogenetically related residents, Chinese administration and reliable historical records in the region began with the Qin dynasty. After establishing the first unified Chinese empire, the Qin expanded southwards and set up Nanhai Commandery at Panyu, the region was independent as Nanyue between the fall of Qin and the reign of Emperor Wu of Han. Under the Wu Kingdom of the Three Kingdoms period, Guangdong was made its own province, for example, internal strife in northern China following the rebellion of An Lushan resulted in a 75% increase in the population of Guangzhou prefecture between 740s–750s and 800s–810s. As more migrants arrived, the population was gradually assimilated to Han Chinese culture or displaced. Multiple women originating from the Persian Gulf lived in Guangzhous foreign quarter, together with Guangxi, Guangdong was made part of Lingnan Circuit, or Mountain-South Circuit, in 627 during the Tang dynasty. The Guangdong part of Lingnan Circuit was renamed Guangnan East Circuit guǎng nán dōng lù in 971 during the Song dynasty, Guangnan East is the source of Guangdong. As Mongols from the north engaged in their conquest of China in the 13th century, the Battle of Yamen 1279 in Guangdong marked the end of the Southern Song Dynasty. During the Mongol Yuan dynasty, large parts of current Guangdong belonged to Jiangxi and its present name, Guangdong Province was given in early Ming dynasty. Since the 16th century, Guangdong has had extensive links with the rest of the world
2.
Hong Kong
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Hong Kong, officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the Peoples Republic of China, is an autonomous territory on the Pearl River Delta of East Asia. Macau lies across the delta to the west, and the Chinese province of Guangdong borders the territory to the north. With a total area of 1,106 square kilometres. Hong Kong was later occupied by Japan during World War II until British control resumed in 1945, under the principle of one country, two systems, Hong Kong maintains a separate political and economic system from China. Except in military defence and foreign affairs, Hong Kong maintains its independent executive, legislative, in addition, Hong Kong develops relations directly with foreign states and international organisations in a broad range of appropriate fields. Hong Kong is one of the worlds most significant financial centres, with the highest Financial Development Index score and consistently ranks as the worlds most competitive and freest economic entity. As the worlds 8th largest trading entity, its legal tender, Hong Kongs tertiary sector dominated economy is characterised by simple taxation with a competitive level of corporate tax and supported by its independent judiciary system. However, while Hong Kong has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world and it has a very high Human Development Index ranking and the worlds longest life expectancy. Over 90% of the population use of well-developed public transportation. Seasonal air pollution with origins from neighbouring areas of Mainland China. Hong Kong was officially recorded in the 1842 Treaty of Nanking to encompass the entirety of the island, before 1842, the name referred to a small inlet—now Aberdeen Harbour, literally means Little Hong Kong)—between Aberdeen Island and the southern coast of Hong Kong Island. Aberdeen was a point of contact between British sailors and local fishermen. Detailed and accurate romanisation systems for Cantonese were available and in use at the time, fragrance may refer to the sweet taste of the harbours fresh water estuarine influx of the Pearl River or to the incense from factories lining the coast of northern Kowloon. The incense was stored near Aberdeen Harbour for export before Hong Kong developed Victoria Harbour, the name had often been written as the single word Hongkong until the government adopted the current form in 1926. Nevertheless, a number of century-old institutions still retain the form, such as the Hongkong Post, Hongkong Electric. As of 1997, its name is the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the Peoples Republic of China. This is the title as mentioned in the Hong Kong Basic Law. Hong Kong has carried many nicknames, the most famous among those is the Pearl of the Orient, which reflected the impressive nightscape of the citys light decorations on the skyscrapers along both sides of the Victoria Harbour
3.
Macau
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Macau, also spelled Macao, officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the Peoples Republic of China, is an autonomous territory on the western side of the Pearl River Delta in East Asia. Macau is bordered by the city of Zhuhai in Mainland China to the north, Hong Kong lies about 64 kilometres to its east across the Delta. With a population of 650,900 living in an area of 30.5 km2, Macau was administered by the Portuguese Empire and its inheritor states from the mid-16th century until late 1999, when it constituted the last remaining European colony in Asia. Portuguese traders first settled in Macau in the 1550s, in 1557, Macau was leased to Portugal from Ming China as a trading port. The Portuguese Empire administered the city under Chinese authority and sovereignty until 1887, sovereignty over Macau was transferred back to China on 20 December 1999. The Joint Declaration on the Question of Macau and Macau Basic Law stipulate that Macau operate with a degree of autonomy until at least 2049. Macau participates in international organizations and events that do not require members to national sovereignty. Macau is a city in Southern China, known for its casinos. Its gaming revenue has been the worlds largest since 2006, with the heavily dependent on gaming. According to The World Factbook, Macau has the fourth highest life expectancy in the world, the present Chinese name means Inlet Gates. Macau is otherwise known in Chinese as Haojing or Jinghai, the name Macau is thought to be derived from the A-Ma Temple, a temple built in 1448 dedicated to Mazu, the goddess of seafarers and fishermen. It is said that when the Portuguese sailors landed at the coast just outside the temple and asked the name of the place, the Portuguese then named the peninsula Macau. The history of Macau is traced back to the Qin dynasty, the first recorded Chinese inhabitants of the area were people seeking refuge in Macau from invading Mongols during the Southern Song. Under the Ming dynasty, fishermen migrated to Macau from Guangdong, the Macau native people were Tanka boat people. Macau did not develop as a settlement until the Portuguese arrived in the 16th century. In 1513, Jorge Álvares became the first Portuguese to land in China, in 1535, Portuguese traders obtained the rights to anchor ships in Macaus harbours and to carry out trading activities, though not the right to stay onshore. In 1557, the Portuguese established a permanent settlement in Macau, the Portuguese continued to pay an annual tribute up to 1863 in order to stay in Macau. By 1564, Portugal commanded western trade with India, Japan, but their pride was damaged by the indifference with which the Chinese treated them
4.
Guangzhou
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Guangzhou, traditionally romanised as Canton, is the capital and most populous city of the province of Guangdong in southern China. Guangzhou is currently, the third city in mainland China, behind Beijing and Shanghai, holds sub-provincial administrative status. In 2015 the citys area was estimated to have a population of 13,501,100. Some estimates place the population of the area of the Pearl River Delta Mega City as high as 44 million without the Hong Kong SAR and 54 million including it. Guangzhou is ranked as a Beta+ Global city, in recent years, there has been a rapidly increasing number of foreign residents and illegal immigrants from Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe, as well as from Africa. This has led to it being dubbed the Capital of the Third World, the migrant population from other provinces of China in Guangzhou was 40 percent of the citys total population in 2008. Long the only Chinese port accessible to foreign traders, the city fell to the British during the First Opium War. No longer enjoying a monopoly after the war, it lost trade to ports such as Hong Kong and Shanghai. In modern commerce, Guangzhou is best known for its annual Canton Fair, for the three consecutive years 2013–2015, Forbes ranked Guangzhou as the best commercial city on the Chinese mainland. Guǎngzhōu is the pinyin romanisation of the Chinese name 廣州, which was simplified in mainland China to 广州 in the 1950s, before acquiring its current name, the town was known as Panyu, a name still borne by one of Guangzhous districts. The origin of the name is uncertain, with 11 various explanations being offered. The city has sometimes been known as Guangzhou Fu or Guangfu after its status as the capital of a commandery. From this latter name, Guangzhou was known to medieval Persians such as Al-Masudi, under the Southern Han, the city was renamed Xingwang. Under the Qing, it was known to its inhabitants as simply The Provincial Capital. The Chinese abbreviation for Guangzhou is 穗, after its nickname Rice City, the former name City of the Immortals came from the same story. The more recent City of Flowers is usually taken as a reference to the areas greenery. The English name Canton derived from Portuguese Cantão or Cidade de Cantão, although it originally and chiefly applied to the walled city, it was also used in English in reference to Guangdong generally. It was adopted as the Postal Map Romanization of Guangzhou and remained in use until the gradual adoption of pinyin
5.
Shenzhen
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Shenzhen is a major city in Guangdong Province, China and one of the five largest and wealthiest cities of China. The city is located north of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and holds sub-provincial administrative status. Shenzhen was a town of 30,000 people on the route of the Kowloon–Canton Railway. That changed in 1979 when Shenzhen was promoted to city-status and in 1980 designated China’s first Special Economic Zone. According to the Government report for 2015, Shenzhen had transformed into a city with a population of 10,778,900, Shenzhen was one of the fastest-growing cities in the world during the 1990s and the 2000s. Shenzhen is a financial center in southern China. The city is home to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange as well as the headquarters of numerous high-tech companies, Shenzhen ranks 19th in the 2016 edition of the Global Financial Centres Index published by the Z/Yen Group and Qatar Financial Centre Authority. It also has one of the busiest container ports in the world, human habitation in Shenzhen dates back to ancient times. The earliest archaeological remains so far unearthed are shards from a site at Xiantouling on Dapeng Bay, from the Han dynasty onwards, the area around Shenzhen was a center of the salt monopoly, thus meriting special Imperial protection. Salt pans are still visible around the Pearl River area to the west of the city and are commemorated in the name of Yantian District, the settlement at Nantou was the political center of the area from early antiquity. In the year 331 AD, six counties covering most of modern southeastern Guangdong were merged into one province or “jun” named Dongguan with its center at Nantou. As well as being a center of the politically and fiscally critical salt trade, the main shipping route to India, Arabia and the Byzantine Empire started at Guangzhou. As early as the century, chronicles record the Nantou area as being a major commercial center. It was also as a defense center guarding the southern approaches to the Pearl River. Shenzhen was also involved in the surrounding the end of the Southern Song dynasty. The Imperial court, fleeing Kublai Khan’s forces, established itself in the Shenzhen area and he jumped off a cliff with Emperor Bing, aged 7, the last emperor of the Southern Song Dynasty strapped to his back, killing both. In the late 19th century the Chiu or Zhao clan in Hong Kong identified that Chiwan, the tomb, since restored, is still at the same location. Earliest known records that carried the name Shenzhen dates from 1410, local people called the drains in paddy fields “zhen”
6.
Dongguan
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Dongguan is a prefecture-level city in central Guangdong province, China. It is part of the Pearl River Delta megacity with more than 44.78 million inhabitants at the 2010 census spread over nine municipalities across an area of 17,573 square kilometres, Dongguans city administration is considered especially progressive in seeking foreign direct investment. Dongguan ranks behind only Shenzhen, Shanghai and Suzhou in exports among Chinese cities and it is also home to one of the worlds largest, though largely empty, shopping malls, the New South China Mall. The majority of the population speak Mandarin due to migrants from parts of the country. Although the earliest traces of habitation in the area stretch back 5,000 years. In 1839, at the outset of the First Opium War, large quantities of seized opium were destroyed in Humen, several of the major battles of the war were fought in this area. During the Second World War, the city served as the base for resistance against the Japanese occupation. Dongguan earned city status in 1985, and was upgraded to city status three years later. During this period the city changed its focus from a town into a manufacturing hub. The city ranked 13th in Forbes Chinas listing of the most innovative mainland cities, geographically, the city is mostly hilly to the east and flat in the west, with 115.98 kilometres of shoreline. It is positioned in the middle of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen economic corridor, of Dongguans total area, 27% is water, 25% forest land, and 13% arable land, while 35% of its land area has been fully developed. Dongguan had an estimated 6,949,800 inhabitants at the end of 2008, at the 2010 Census the population had expanded to 8,220,237. The number reached 8.29 million by the end of 2012, Dongguan is the hometown for many overseas Chinese, the family origin of over 700,000 people in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau and over 200,000 nationals living abroad. Dongguan has no county level but instead is divided into 32 towns, Dongguan has a humid subtropical climate, with abundant sunshine. It lies just south of the Tropic of Cancer, the average temperature is 23.3 °C throughout the year with average rainfall of 2,042.6 millimetres. Many foreign travellers to Dongguan fly into Hong Kong, which gives visa on arrival to citizens of over 170 countries, after landing, visitors must apply for a visa to enter mainland China. One can travel from Hong Kong to Dongguan by bus, ferry, Dongguan serves as one of the regional railway hubs in Guangdong, where the Guangzhou-Kowloon Railway, Guangzhou-Meizhou-Shantou Railway and the Beijing-Kowloon Railway converge. Rail services in and out of the city call at Dongguan railway station there are direct train services to Guangzhou East railway station in Guangzhou
7.
Foshan
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Foshan, formerly romanized as Fatshan, is a prefecture-level city in central Guangdong Province in southeastern China. The entire prefecture covers 3,848.49 km2 and has a population around 7.2 million. It forms part of the side of the Pearl River Delta Economic Zone. Foshan is regarded as the home of the Cantonese forms of Chinese opera, kung fu, lion dancing, fóshān is the pinyin romanization of the citys Chinese name 佛山, based on its Mandarin pronunciation. The Postal Map spelling Fatshan derives from the same names local Cantonese pronunciation, other romanizations include Fat-shan and Fat-shun. The town grew up around a monastery founded nearby that was destroyed in 1391, the towns nicknames include the Hometown of Cantonese Opera, of Lingnan Kung Fu, of Lingnan Lion Dancing, and of Lingnan Dragon Boat Racing. Foshan remained a settlement on the Fen River for most of Chinas history. It grew up around a Tang-era Buddhist monastery that was destroyed in 1391, the Foshan Ancestral Temple, a Taoist temple to the Northern God that was rebuilt in 1372, became the new focus of the community by the 15th century. By the early Ming, Foshan had grown one of the four great markets in China, primarily on the strength of its local ceramics. Under the Qing, its harbor on the Fen River was limited to ships of a thousand tons burden, by the 19th century, it was considered the Birmingham of China, with its steel industry responsible for the consumption of the majority of the provinces iron production. It was connected to Guangzhou and Sanshui by rail in the early 20th century, the Ancestral Temple was converted into the Foshan Municipal Museum upon the victory of the Communists in the Chinese Civil War in 1949. Foshan remained primarily focused on ceramic and steel production until the 1950s, on 26 June 1951 it left Nanhai County to become a separate county-level city and, in 1954, it was made the seat of the prefectural government. In 1983, Foshan was promoted to a city with its former core becoming the new Chancheng District. On 8 December 2002, Shunde and Nanhai joined its urban core as a full district, Shunde has gone on to obtain an unusual autonomous status in 2009, placing its oversight in the hands of the provincial government rather than the prefectural one. Foshan lies on the Fen River in the making up the west side of the Pearl River Delta. Guangzhou lies 25 kilometers to the northeast, Zhongshan to the southeast, Jiangmen to the south, Qingyuan to the west, Foshan experiences a humid subtropical climate. The prefecture-level city of Foshan administers five county-level divisions, all of which are districts, the five districts are, Chancheng, Nanhai, Sanshui, Gaoming and Shunde. These are further divided into 64 township-level divisions, including 37 towns and 27 subdistricts, Foshan is close to Guangzhou and considers its link with Guangzhou very important
8.
Zhongshan
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Zhongshan is a prefecture-level city in the south of the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong province, China, with a population of over 3 million. The city used to be called Shekki or Shiqi, Zhongshan is one of a very few cities in China named after a person. It is named after Dr. Sun Yat-sen, who is known in Mandarin as Sun Zhongshan. Sun, the father of the Republic of China who is also regarded positively by the Peoples Republic, was born in Cuiheng village in Nanlang Township of what was then Xiangshan County. In 1925, the year after his death, Xiangshan was renamed Zhongshan in his honor, until 1925, Zhongshan was generally known as Xiangshan or Heung-san, in reference to the many flowers that grew in the mountains nearby. The city was renamed in honor of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, Sun is considered by both the China and the Republic of China to be the Father of Modern China, and was from Cuiheng village – now part of Nanlang Town in Zhongshan. Thousands of years ago, much of the Zhongshan area lay within the Pearl River estuary, gradually from south to north, the area filled in with alluvial silt and became dry land. The northern parts of todays Zhongshan did not fill in until the time of the Ming Dynasty, the Zhongshan area was part of an extended Dongguan County during the Tang Dynasty, and was a significant sea salt producer. The prosperous settlement was upgraded to a county in 1152. After the collapse of the Southern Song Dynasty, many descendants of Song court officials, including members of the imperial family, under the Qing Dynasty, embankments were built to prevent flooding in the new alluvial lands, and the area of cultivation was extended. Much of the First Opium War took place in and around Xiangshan, in 1839, the official Lin Zexu arrived in Xiangshan and ordered the expulsion of Sir Charles Elliot and other British traders from the area. Qing Dynasty soldiers resisted British attacks on the area in 1840, after the Opium Wars opened the region to foreign influence, a number of Xiangshan residents, including Sun Zhongshan, left to study overseas and were among the creators of modern China. Xiangshan was one of the first counties in China liberated as part of the Xinhai Revolution, after Sun Zhongshans death in 1925, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the Republic of China decided to memorialize Sun by renaming his county of birth from Xiangshan to Zhongshan. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, in July 1937, the Imperial Japanese Army seized several islands belonging to Zhongshan, during March 1940, the Japanese army occupied most of Zhongshan. The Japanese army implemented Unit 8604 or Nami Unit, a military medical unit, related to Unit 731. It was headquartered at Zhongshan Medical University, Nationalist and Communist units launched guerrilla attacks on Japanese forces beginning in 1942. On August 15,1945, Japanese forces declared an unconditional surrender, Zhongshan was the scene of fighting during the Chinese Civil War and was held for much of the war by Nationalists. On October 30,1949, however, the Peoples Liberation Army defeated Nationalist forces in Zhongshan, in 1983, Zhongshan was elevated in administrative status from a county to a county-level city under the administration of Foshan
9.
Jiangmen
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Jiangmen, formerly romanized as Kongmoon, is a prefecture-level city in Guangdong Province in southern China. Its 3 urban districts are now part of the Guangzhou–Shenzhen conurbation, Jiangmen is the pinyin romanization of the Chinese name 江門 or 江门, based on its pronunciation in the Mandarin dialect. Its former Wade-Giles spelling was Chiang-men, the Postal Map spelling Kongmoon was based upon the same names Cantonese pronunciation Gong¹-mun⁴. Other forms of the name include Kong Moon, Kongmun, the name is often the butt of local jokes, since both Jiangmen and 肛門 or 肛门 are pronounced identically in Cantonese. This has led to proposals to change the name of the city, such as a 2009 campaign to rename it Qiáodū, Capital of the Overseas Chinese, Jiangmen is also known as Pengjiang. Its hinterland is known to the Chinese diaspora as the Four Counties, historically, Jiangmen Town was a community under the administration of nearby Xinhui County. Jiangmen, however, was forced to open to trade in 1902. A legacy of this period is a waterfront district lined with western-style buildings. The city has an ongoing project which is restoring many of these buildings. Jiangmen was proclaimed a city in 1951 and later became the seat for the Four County region including Taishan, Kaiping, Xinhui. In 2011, the city banned pet dogs in public after rabies killed 42 people over the preceding 3 years, the city is located on the lower reaches of the Xijiang or West River, in the west of the Pearl River Delta in the middle of southern Guangdong Province. It faces the South China Sea in the south and is 100 kilometres away from Guangzhou, Jiangmen city has an area of 9,260 square kilometres, about one quarter the size of the Pearl River Delta. The climate is subtropical with monsoonal influences, the annual average temperature is 21.8 °C. Jiangmen was selected by the Chinese state as a city for a nationwide information programme. It was also chosen by the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council as a city for the Regional Integration for Sustainable Economics project. According to the Report on Investment Environment in China 2003 by the World Bank, Jiangmen ranked the fourth after Shanghai, Hangzhou, the economic development strategies within Jiangmen focus on the three urban districts, and the south, middle and north lines. It is planned to develop four main areas, the central urban district of the city, the Yinzhou Lake economic area. Similar to other cities in the western Pearl River Delta, the sector plays a significant role in Jiangmens economy
10.
Zhuhai
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Zhuhai is a prefecture-level city on the southern coast of Guangdong province in China. Located in the Pearl River Delta, Zhuhai borders Jiangmen to the northwest, Zhongshan to the north, Zhuhai was one of the original Special Economic Zones established in the 1980s. Zhuhai is also one of Chinas premier tourist destinations, being called the Chinese Riviera, according to a report released in 2014 by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Zhuhai is the most livable city in China. Zhuhai borders the Macau Special Administrative Region, and is 140 kilometres southwest of Guangzhou and its territory includes 146 islands and a coastline of 690 kilometres. Some of the latter are actually closer to Hong Kong than to the Zhuhai mainland. The jurisdiction of Nei Lingding Island, located in the Pearl River estuary was transferred from Zhuhai to Shenzhen in 2009, average highs in January and July are 18 and 32 °C respectively. It never snows and a frost has never recorded in the city centre. Conversely, extreme heat waves do not occur as they do further inland, Zhuhai became a city in 1979, a year before it was designated as one of the first Special Economic Zones of China. The establishment of Zhuhai as an SEZ allowed the Chinese Central Government and economy to have access to the Macau and consequently. As a result, Zhuhai is now a city in the Pearl River Delta region according to the new general urban plan approved by the State Council. The implementation of Special Economy Zone intended for the city to become a key city, science and education city, scenic and tourism city. The outstanding geographic location, a range of supporting infrastructure. Utilized foreign investment reached US$10.344 billion in 2008, among the top 500 enterprises worldwide,19 of them have investment projects in Zhuhai such as ExxonMobil, BP, Siemens, Carrefour and Matsushita. Hong Kong is the largest overseas investor in Zhuhai, accounting for 22% of total utilized foreign investment in 2002, Zhuhai hi-tech zone is located in the north of Zhuhai, which is very close to downtown. Furthermore, technological resources are centralized in our zone, there is also a development in hi-tech industries which is leading by software. The hi-tech zone is the showcase for Zhuhais scientific development, Zhuhai Free Trade Zone Zhuhai Free Trade Zone was founded in 1996 with the State Councils approval, occupying 3 km2. A Zhuhai FTZ Administrative Committee was set up in June 1997, by the end of 2006, there had been over 200 companies registered in the Free Trade Zone, including more than 150 foreign-funded enterprises, and the total investment amount was 1 billion US dollars. Their combined sales were more than 1.3 billion US dollars or 10% of all the sales in the world
11.
Huizhou
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Huìzhōu is a city in southeast Guangdong Province, China. The city has about 4.6 million inhabitants and is administered as a prefecture-level city, daya Bay Economic and Technological Development Zone Huizhou Dayawan Economic and Technological Development Zone was approved by the State Council in 1993. It had an area of 9.98 km2, and in 2006. Industries encouraged in the zone include Automobile Production/Assembly, Chemical Production and Processing, Electronics Assembly & Manufacturing, Huizhou Export Processing Zone Huizhou Export Processing Zone was approved by Guangdong Provincial Government as a subzone of DBETDZ in June,2005. The planned area was 3 km2, the zone was considered suitable for companies focusing on electronics, auto parts, textiles and chemicals. Beijing-Kowloon Railway and Huizhou-Aotou Railway also run through the zone, linking it with Beijing, Hong Kong, Shenzhen Baoan International Airport is within one-and-a-half hours drive from the zone. Huizhou Zhongkai HIDZ has established electronics, information technology and optical-, mechanical- and it also encourages investment in new materials, telecommunications, and other high-tech industries. The zone is one of the National Electronic Information Industry Bases and National Video, the zone has attracted many large multinational companies. Major investors include Sony, SPG, Futaba, Coca-Cola, LG, the prefecture-level city of Huizhou administers 5 county-level divisions, including 2 districts and 3 counties. Huizhou is served by the Jingjiu Railway with two stations, Huizhou West and Huizhou, the town is about a two-hour drive by bus from Shenzhen Baoan International Airport. A mass rapid transit linking it to Shenzhen was under construction as of 2011, the main language spoken by the local people in Huizhou is Huizhou dialect as well as Hakka. As more newcomers from the other come to work in Huizhou. There are nearly 100 islands and reefs in the bay, the climate is described as a typical subtropical oceanic climate, with temperatures averaging 21.8 degrees over the year. Beach Spa Huizhous seashore hot springs are filled with geothermal minerals, sea-level city The Sea city was built in the 18th year of the Ming dynasty, under the Hongwu Emperor, giving it a history of over 600 years. It is found south of the Five Ridges, Elephant Head Mountain Elephant head mountain scenic area is located in the south of Boluo County,18 kilometres from the Huizhou city area, and covers an area of 33 km2. It was formed of rock in the Cretaceous period and has a main peak of 1023 meters above sea level. The mountain bedrock forms a stone egg landscape. Huizhou is twinned with, Hallstatt, Austria Milpitas, California, United States Government website of Huizhou
12.
Zhaoqing
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Zhaoqing, formerly romanized as Shiuhing, is a prefecture-level city in Guangdong Province, China. During the 2010 census, its population was 3,918,467, with 1,232,462 living in the areas of Duanzhou District. The prefectural seat—excluding Seven Star Crags—is fairly flat, but thickly forested mountains lie just outside its limits, numerous rice paddies and aquaculture ponds are found on the outskirts of the city. Sihui and the districts of the prefecture are considered part of the Pearl River Delta. Formerly one of the most important cities in southern China, Zhaoqing lost importance during the Qing and is now known for tourism. Residents from Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and the cities of the Pearl River Delta visit it for weekend excursions. It is also a manufacturing center. Zhaoqing was known to the Qin and Han as Gaoyao and it was renamed Duanzhou from its role as the seat of Duan Prefecture under the Sui. The present name, meaning Beginning Auspiciousness, was bestowed on the area by Emperor Huizong of the Song in 1118, Zhaoqing is the pinyin romanization, the earlier Postal Map form Shiuhing derives from the names Cantonese pronunciation. Gaoyao was located on the bank of the Xi River, named for its districts principal feature. When the Portuguese arrived in the 16th century, Zhaoqing was still an important center, matteo Riccis On the Christian Expedition among the Sinae tells of the early visits of Macanese-based Europeans to Zhaoqing. The Viceroy Chen Rui summoned Macaos mayor and bishop in the early 1580s, but the town sent its auditor Mattia Penella, Ricci drew the first modern Chinese map of the world in Zhaoqing in 1584. Ruggieri left for Rome in 1588 but Ricci remained until the next year, during the Fall of the Ming in the mid-17th century, Zhaoqing served as the capital of the Prince of Guis Southern Ming resistance, with the prince styling himself the Yongli Emperor. The town fell in 1650 and the relocated to Guilin and then various locations in Guangxi, Yunnan. The Jesuits Andreas Wolfgang Koffler and, later, Michał Boym stayed for some time at his court, Zhaoqing is located 110 km northwest of Guangzhou, in the west Pearl River Delta. It lies on the shores of the Xi River, which flows from west to east. A plain area lies to the south and west of Zhaoqing, with mountains to the east, the city has a monsoon-influenced humid subtropical climate. The yearly average temperature is 22.3 °C, and annual precipitation is 1,605 mm, in the agriculture sector, the fertile plains yield paddy rice, sugar cane, aquatic products, fruits, rosin and cassia bark
13.
Ma Xingrui
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Ma Xingrui is a Chinese aerospace engineer and politician who is the Governor of Guangdong. Ma is a member of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. Ma Xingrui is recognized as one of Chinas top scientists, Ma Xingrui was born in October 1959 in Shuangyashan, Heilongjiang province, to a family of mine workers in Chinas industrial northeast. His branch of the migrated from Yuncheng County, Shandong to Shuangyashan in the 1930s during his grandfathers generation. He received a degree at Fuxin Mining College in 1982. He earned his doctorate in mechanics at Harbin Institute of Technology and he joined the Communist Party of China in January 1988. He stayed at HIT to pursue post-doctoral work, and was named a professor in 1991, in April 1992 he became dean of the school of mechanics at the institute. In April 1996 he was named president of the institute. In May 1996 Ma was appointed Vice-Dean of Chinese Academy of Space Technology, in 1999 he was named deputy general manager of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. In December 2003 he was additionally appointed Chairman of the Sino Satellite Communications Company, in September 2007, Ma was promoted to General Manager of CASC. He was the commander of the successful Change 3 mission. In 2012, Ma was elected as a member of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. In March 2015, he was named Communist Party Secretary of Shenzhen, mas appointment in Shenzhen placed him in his first executive party leadership role. His appointment also elevated the status of the office, given that his predecessor Wang is only a member of the Central Committee. In December 2016, Ma was appointed as the acting Governor of Guangdong, in a break with tradition, Ma became the first governor in over 30 years to have not been native to the province. Ma was elected as the Governor of Guangdong on January 23,2017
14.
Chief Executive of Hong Kong
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The Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is the head and representative of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and head of the Government of Hong Kong. The position was created to replace the Governor of Hong Kong, the office, stipulated by the Hong Kong Basic Law, formally came into being on 1 July 1997 when the sovereignty of Hong Kong was transferred from the United Kingdom to the Peoples Republic of China. The Chief Executive holds the title The Honourable, and ranks first in the Hong Kong order of precedence, the current Chief Executive is Leung Chun-ying who took office on 1 July 2012. The official residence of the Chief Executive is Government House in Central, according to Article 44 of the Basic Law, the Chief Executive must be a Chinese citizen as defined by the HKSAR Passports Ordinance. Article 47 further requires that the Chief Executive be a person of integrity, in addition, since the 4th Chief Executive term, candidates may not stand for selection by the Election Committee without first obtaining 150 nominations from its members. In the first election of the Chief Executive, the Committee consisted of only 400 members and it was expanded to 800 for the second term. The functional constituencies correspond to various sectors of the economy and society, the elected Chief Executive must be appointed by the Premier of the Central Peoples Government before taking office. According to Article 46 the term of office of the Chief Executive is five years with a maximum of two consecutive terms, if a vacancy occurs mid-term, the new Chief Executives first term is for the remainder of the previous Chief Executives term only. The method of selecting the Chief Executive is provided under Article 45 and Annex I of the Basic Law, under the Basic Law the Chief Executive is the chief representative of the people of Hong Kong and is the head of the government of Hong Kong. The position is responsible for the policy address made to the public. The CEs powers and functions are established by Article 48 of the Basic Law, the Executive Council of Hong Kong is an organ for assisting the Chief Executive in policy-making. The council is consulted before making important policy decisions, introducing bills to the Legislative Council, Article 52 stipulates circumstances under which the Chief Executive must resign. Examples include the loss of ability to discharge his or her duties or refusal to sign a bill passed by a majority of the Legislative Council. The acting and succession line is spelled out in Article 53, in case the position becomes vacant, a new Chief Executive would have to be elected. The provisions of inability to exercise the powers come into force, prior to the handover in 1997, the office of the Chief Executive-designate was at the 7th floor of the Asia Pacific Finance Tower. When Tung Chee-hwa assumed duty on 1 July 1997, the office of the Chief Executive was located at the 5th floor of the Former Central Government Offices, in the past the governor had his office at Government House. Tung did not use Government House as the residence because he lived at his own residence at Grenville House. Donald Tsang decided to return to the renovated Government House during his first term, in 2011, the office of the Chief Executive moved to the low block of the new Central Government Complex in Tamar
15.
Carrie Lam
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Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, GBM, GBS, JP is the Chief Executive-designate of Hong Kong, after winning the 2017 Chief Executive election. Before that she was the Chief Secretary for Administration, the most senior rank of principal officials of Hong Kong, after graduating from the University of Hong Kong, Lam joined the civil service in 1980 and has served in various bureaux and departments. She became an official in 2007, when she was appointed Secretary for Development. During her service, she earned the reputation as a fighter from her handling of the demolition of the Queens Pier. She became the Chief Secretary under the Leung Chun-ying administration in 2012 and she headed the Task Force on Constitutional Development on the political reform from 2013 to 2015 and held talks with the student leaders during the large-scale occupation protests in 2014. Born Cheng Yuet-ngor to a family of Zhoushan ancestry in Hong Kong. After graduation, Lam attended the University of Hong Kong majoring in social work and she organised exchange trips to Tsinghua University. Through her student activism, she came to know Lee Wing-tat, to better understand society and participate more actively in student activities, she switched her course of study from social work to sociology after the first year to avoid placements. Lam eventually graduated with a Bachelor of Social Sciences in 1980, in 1982, the Hong Kong Government funded her pursuit of studies at Cambridge University where she met her future husband mathematician Lam Siu-por. Lam joined the Administrative Service in 1980 after she graduated from the University of Hong Kong and she has served in various bureaux and departments, spending about seven years in the Finance Bureau which involved in budgetary planning and expenditure control. She worked initially as Principal Assistant Secretary and subsequently as Deputy Secretary for the Treasury in the 1990s, in 2000, Lam was promoted as the Director of Social Welfare Department during the period of high unemployment and severe fiscal deficits in Hong Kong. She tightened the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance scheme and making it only to people who had lived in Hong Kong for more than seven years. In November 2003, Lam was appointed Permanent Secretary for Housing, Planning and Lands and she was soon appointed Director-General of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London in September 2004. On 8 March 2006, Lam returned to Hong Kong to take up the position as Permanent Secretary for Home Affairs and she was involved in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and Paralympics Equestrian Events and the West Kowloon Cultural District plan. On 1 July 2007, Lam left the service when she was appointed Secretary for Development by Chief Executive Donald Tsang, becoming one of the principal officials. In July 2007, she attended a forum at Queens Pier in a bid to persuade the protesters to disperse. She firmly repeated the position that it was not an option to retain the pier. Her handling of the pier conflict earned her a reputation as a fighter by the then Chief Secretary for Administration Rafael Hui
16.
Chief Executive of Macau
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The Chief Executive of Macau is the head of the government of Macau, a special administrative region of China and a former Portuguese overseas province governed by the Governor of Macau. Under the Basic Law of Macau, the CEs role is. be the head of the Macau Special Administrative Region, the current chief executive is Fernando Chui Sai On. His office is located at the Macau Government Headquarters, formerly the Governors House, the CE has used this as his office since 2009. The Office of the CE was created by the First Session of the Eighth National Peoples Congress of the Peoples Republic of China on 31 March 1993, the CE is selected by election or through consultations held locally and be appointed by the Central Peoples Government. The term of office of the Chief Executive shall be five years, section 55 covers the temporary assignment of the role of the CE proceeding resignation
17.
Fernando Chui
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Fernando Chui Sai On is the current Chief Executive of Macau, he was the Secretary for Social and Cultural Affairs from 1999 to 2009. Chui was born in 1957 to local construction tycoon Chui Tak Seng and Chan Keng Fan and his wife is a niece of the late Hong Kong tycoon Henry Fok Ying-tung. In Macau, Chui attended Lingnan High School and then finished high school at Hawaiian Mission Academy in Honolulu before pursuing his post-secondary education. Due to studying in the United States at an age, Chui did not have the opportunity to study Mandarin. This was evident when he made his oath of acceptance as the Chief Executive of Macao in front of President Hu Jintao, prior to his current position, Chui served as a member of the Fifth Legislative Assembly of the Macau Government. In June 2009 Chui declared himself the candidate for Macaus chief executive election. He was nominated by 286 members of the 300-member election committee, on election day,26 July,282 committee members voted for Chui. He assumed his new role as Chief Executive of Macau in December 2009, most notably, the East Asian Games in 2005 were run under Chuis portfolio and put him in the midst of the Ao Man Long scandal. The games ran over budget by 70%, Ao allegedly received a MOP50 million bribe in connection with the construction contract for the games centerpiece, the Macau Dome indoor arena. Overall, that wound up costing MOP640 million, MOP285 million over budget. As a result, he was unpopular amongst the pro-democracy camp even before he was elected as the chief executive. In 2016, Chui was caught up in allegations of transferring Macaus reserves to the mainland, the Macanese government said that the donation was made in return for China’s long-standing support to the SAR. Information on the officials and the Procurator-General of the MSAR
18.
Metropolitan area
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As social, economic and political institutions have changed, metropolitan areas have become key economic and political regions. The Greater São Paulo is a term for one of the multiple definitions the large metropolitan area located in the São Paulo state in Brazil. A metropolitan area combines an urban agglomeration with zones not necessarily urban in character and these outlying zones are sometimes known as a commuter belt, and may extend well beyond the urban zone, to other political entities. For example, El Monte, California is considered part of the Los Angeles metro area in the United States, in practice, the parameters of metropolitan areas, in both official and unofficial usage, are not consistent. Population figures given for one area can vary by millions. A polycentric metropolitan area is one not connected by continuous development or conurbation, in defining a metropolitan area, it is sufficient that a city or cities form a nucleus that other areas have a high degree of integration with. The Australian Bureau of Statistics defines statistical divisions as areas under the influence of one or more major towns or a major city. However, this definition has become obsolete with the conurbation of several statistical divisions into a larger metropolitan areas. In Brazil, metropolitan areas are called metropolitan regions, each State defines its own legislation for the creation, definition and organization of a metropolitan region. The creation of a region is not intended for any statistical purpose, although the Brazilian Institute of Geography. Their main purpose is to allow for a management of public policies of common interest to all cities involved. They dont have political, electoral or jurisdictional power whatsoever, so living in a metropolitan region do not elect representatives for them. Statistics Canada defines a metropolitan area as an area consisting of one or more adjacent municipalities situated around a major urban core. To form a CMA, the area must have a population of at least 100,000. To be included in the CMA, adjacent municipalities must have a degree of integration with the core. As of the Canada 2011 Census, there were 33 CMAs in Canada, including six with a population over one million—Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton. In Denmark the only area is Greater Copenhagen, consisting of the Capital Region of Denmark along with the neighboring regions Region Zealand. Greater Copenhagen has an population of 1.25 million people
19.
Cantonese
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Cantonese, or Standard Cantonese, is a variety of Chinese spoken in the city of Guangzhou in southeastern China. It is the prestige variety of Yue, one of the major subdivisions of Chinese. In mainland China, it is the lingua franca of the province of Guangdong and some neighbouring areas such as Guangxi. In Hong Kong and Macau, Cantonese serves as one of their official languages and it is also spoken amongst overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and throughout the Western World. When Cantonese and the closely related Yuehai dialects are classified together, Cantonese is viewed as vital part of the cultural identity for its native speakers across large swathes of southeastern China, Hong Kong and Macau. Although Cantonese shares some vocabulary with Mandarin, the two varieties are mutually unintelligible because of differences in pronunciation, grammar and lexicon, sentence structure, in particular the placement of verbs, sometimes differs between the two varieties. This results in the situation in which a Cantonese and a Mandarin text may look similar, in English, the term Cantonese is ambiguous. Cantonese proper is the variety native to the city of Canton and this narrow sense may be specified as Canton language or Guangzhou language in English. However, Cantonese may also refer to the branch of Cantonese that contains Cantonese proper as well as Taishanese and Gaoyang. In this article, Cantonese is used for Cantonese proper, historically, speakers called this variety Canton speech or Guangzhou speech, although this term is now seldom used outside mainland China. In Guangdong province, people call it provincial capital speech or plain speech. In Hong Kong and Macau, as well as among overseas Chinese communities, in mainland China, the term Guangdong speech is also increasingly being used among both native and non-native speakers. Due to its status as a prestige dialect among all the dialects of the Cantonese or Yue branch of Chinese varieties, the official languages of Hong Kong are Chinese and English, as defined in the Hong Kong Basic Law. The Chinese language has different varieties, of which Cantonese is one. Given the traditional predominance of Cantonese within Hong Kong, it is the de facto official spoken form of the Chinese language used in the Hong Kong Government and all courts and it is also used as the medium of instruction in schools, alongside English. A similar situation exists in neighboring Macau, where Chinese is an official language along with Portuguese. As in Hong Kong, Cantonese is the predominant spoken variety of Chinese used in life and is thus the official form of Chinese used in the government. The variant spoken in Hong Kong and Macau is known as Hong Kong Cantonese, Cantonese first developed around the port city of Guangzhou in the Pearl River Delta region of southeastern China
20.
Standard Chinese
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Its pronunciation is based on the Beijing dialect, its vocabulary on the Mandarin dialects, and its grammar is based on written vernacular Chinese. Like other varieties of Chinese, Standard Chinese is a language with topic-prominent organization. It has more initial consonants but fewer vowels, final consonants, Standard Chinese is an analytic language, though with many compound words. There exist two standardised forms of the language, namely Putonghua in Mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan, aside from a number of differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, Putonghua is written using simplified Chinese characters, while Guoyu is written using traditional Chinese characters. There are many characters that are identical between the two systems, in English, the governments of China and Hong Kong use Putonghua, Putonghua Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, and Mandarin, while those of Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, use Mandarin. The name Putonghua also has a long, albeit unofficial, history and it was used as early as 1906 in writings by Zhu Wenxiong to differentiate a modern, standard Chinese from classical Chinese and other varieties of Chinese. For some linguists of the early 20th century, the Putonghua, or common tongue/speech, was different from the Guoyu. The former was a prestige variety, while the latter was the legal standard. Based on common understandings of the time, the two were, in fact, different, Guoyu was understood as formal vernacular Chinese, which is close to classical Chinese. By contrast, Putonghua was called the speech of the modern man. The use of the term Putonghua by left-leaning intellectuals such as Qu Qiubai, prior to this, the government used both terms interchangeably. In Taiwan, Guoyu continues to be the term for Standard Chinese. The term Putonghua, on the contrary, implies nothing more than the notion of a lingua franca, Huayu, or language of the Chinese nation, originally simply meant Chinese language, and was used in overseas communities to contrast Chinese with foreign languages. Over time, the desire to standardise the variety of Chinese spoken in these communities led to the adoption of the name Huayu to refer to Mandarin and it also incorporates the notion that Mandarin is usually not the national or common language of the areas in which overseas Chinese live. The term Mandarin is a translation of Guānhuà, which referred to the lingua franca of the late Chinese empire, in English, Mandarin may refer to the standard language, the dialect group as a whole, or to historic forms such as the late Imperial lingua franca. The name Modern Standard Mandarin is sometimes used by linguists who wish to distinguish the current state of the language from other northern. Chinese has long had considerable variation, hence prestige dialects have always existed. Confucius, for example, used yǎyán rather than colloquial regional dialects, rime books, which were written since the Northern and Southern dynasties, may also have reflected one or more systems of standard pronunciation during those times
21.
Hong Kong English
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Hong Kong English is the dialect of the English language used in Hong Kong. The dialect is a result of Hong Kongs British oversea territory history, Hong Kong predominantly uses British spellings. Pronunciations and words are also predominantly British, although influences from American, Canadian and Australian English do exist as a result of western TV, Cantonese English, in theory, refers to the accent and characteristics of English spoken by native Hong Kongers and other Cantonese people. Overall, it is spoken by native Hong Kong language speakers. Therefore, although it is called Hong Kong English, it is not only spoken in Hong Kong, people who come from Macau, Guangzhou, or whose first language is Cantonese speak it. Since many of the characteristics of Hong Kong English are perceived as erroneous, the majority of Hong Kongers and Macau people with English proficiency tend to follow British English, American English or a mixture of the two. English is one of the languages in Hong Kong, and is used widely in the Government, academic circles, business. All road and government signs are bilingual and English is as valid as Chinese on legal. Accent and spelling preference may vary person to person, depending on the people they have interacted with. For instance, contractions and slang are not used, and many idioms are alien to Hong Kongers because the terms pertain more to the cultures of English-speaking countries, the falling English proficiency of local English language teachers has come under criticism. Since the handover, English in Hong Kong remains primarily a second language, consonants in Cantonese are all voiceless except nasals and semivowels, as a result, /d/, /z/, and /dʒ/ are pronounced, and. There is a tendency for /θ/ to undergo fronting and become /f/, so through may be pronounced as /fu/, however, this is variable, so some speakers pronounce thin as /θɪn/ while others pronounce it as /fin/. /ð/ tends to become unaspirated /t/, so though is /tou/ and this is reported to be very widespread, so this is nearly always /tis/, and brother is /ˈbata/. Most people do not distinguish voiced and voiceless word-final stops, making bat and bad homonyms. Some do not distinguish /ʃ/ and /s/, in Cantonese these sounds are allophonic and this new condition does not appear on nearly all the younger, or even the middle-aged Hongkongers. Corruption of /tr/ to /tʃ/ often occurs, chain and train are pronounced both /t͡sʰe̝ŋ/, but some speakers pronounce the word train as, like many places in Britain, Hong Kong English is non-rhotic, which means /ɹ/ is not pronounced except before a vowel. However, with the influence of American programmes shown in TV, Some people pronounce /ɹ/ as /w/, except when followed by a consonant other than g or k, rain sounds like wing, and free like fee. Some people pronounce /ɹ/ as /l/ before rounded vowels, road sounds like low, wh is pronounced as /w/, as in English English and most American dialects
22.
Macanese Portuguese
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Macanese Portuguese is a Portuguese dialect spoken in Macau, where Portuguese is co-official with Cantonese. Portuguese is the first language of roughly 3% of the population and it is distinct from the Macanese language, a Portuguese Creole in Macau. Macau had its first contact with the Portuguese language in 1557 when the territory was established as a center of Portugal to other parts of Asia. The language largely entered Macau in the 19th century when China ceded Macau to Portugal, at that time, it was made an official language along with Cantonese. Currently, there is one school in Macau where Portuguese is the medium of instruction. Macau was transferred sovereignty from Portugal to Peoples Republic of China in 1999, the Macanese dialect is traditionally an Old Portuguese variety, in some aspects similar to Brazilian Portuguese in pronunciation. For example, the word pôde is pronounced in most part of Brazil, the only Portuguese-medium school teaches Standard European Portuguese, as with most of the CPLP. These phonological differences do not apply to Chinese who have higher education in Portuguese, Macanese grammar was also Old Portuguese similar to Brazilian Portuguese, but it now follows the European grammar. Vocabulary is the same as in Portugal and Brazil, but there are some differences due to Cantonese influence and these include tim sam, dim sum, goh lor, goh low and, shu tiu, si tiu. Vocabulary even went to Brazil through leaving Portuguese settlers with some Macanese and Chinese settlers
23.
Macanese Patois
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It is now spoken by a few families in Macau and in the Macanese diaspora. On February 20,2009, the new edition of UNESCO’s Atlas of the Worlds Languages in Danger classified Patua as a endangered language. The Atlas puts the number of Patua speakers at 50 as of the year 2000 and it underwent decreolization and a shift to Standard Portuguese while Macau was still under Portuguese administration. The language is called by its speakers Papia Cristam di Macau. In Portuguese it is called Macaense, Macaista Chapado, or Patuá, the language developed first mainly among the descendants of Portuguese settlers. Like any other language, Macanese underwent extensive changes in usage, grammar, syntax, some linguists see a sharp distinction between the archaic Macanese, spoken until the early 19th century, and the modern form that was strongly influenced by Cantonese. The modern version arose in the late 19th century, when Macanese men began marrying Chinese women from Macau, the British occupation of Hong Kong from the mid-19th century also added many English words to the lexicon. Over its history the language also acquired elements from several other Indian tongues and these varied influences made Macanese a unique cocktail of European and Asian languages. Lets revive an almost lost memory, Fernandes said about efforts by Patuá aficionados to ensure the survival of Macaus sweet language that, after all, is part of its unique history. The language played an important role in Macaus social and commercial development between the 16th and 19th centuries, when it was the language of communication among Macaus Eurasian residents. However, even during that period the number of speakers was relatively small, probably always amounting to just thousands. Macanese continued to be spoken as the tongue of several thousand of people, in Macau, Hong Kong and elsewhere, through 19th. At that time, Macanese speakers were consciously using the language in opposition to the standard Portuguese of the metropolitan administration, in the early 20th century, for example, it was the vehicle of satirical sketches poking fun at Portuguese authorities. A few writers, such as the late poet José dos Santos Ferreira, on the other hand, Macanese never enjoyed any official status, and was never formally taught in Macau. Starting in the late 19th century, its role in the life of the colony was greatly diminished by the governments drive to establish standard Portuguese throughout its territories. High-society Macanese gradually stopped using it in the early 20th century, all people, including many Chinese learning Portuguese as their second or third language, are required to learn standard European Portuguese dialect. Macanese use was already in decline while Macau was a Portuguese territory, still, its speakers take great pride in the fact that Macau has its own local language, something that Hong Kong does not have. In spite of its character and centuries-old history, Macanese has received scant attention from linguists
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Time in China
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The time in China follows a single standard time offset of UTC+08,00, despite China spanning five geographical time zones. The official national standard time is called Beijing Time domestically and China Standard Time internationally, daylight saving time has not been observed since 1991. The special administrative regions maintain their own authorities, with standards called Hong Kong Time. These have been equivalent to Beijing time since 1992, in addition, a second time standard is used in Xinjiang, two hours less than the Beijing Time, which is called Ürümqi Time or Xinjiang Time. In 1912, the Republic of China established five standard time zones, namely Kunlun, Sinkiang-Tibet, Kansu-Szechwan, Chungyuan, and Changpai. The unified time zone policy was adopted by the Communist Party of China or the Central People’s Government some time between 27 September 1949 and 6 October 1949, the date is unknown. However, recent research suggests that the policy was most likely adopted on 27 September 1949, daylight saving time was observed from 1986 to 1991. In 1997 and 1999, Hong Kong and Macau were transferred to China from the United Kingdom and Portugal, although the sovereignty of the SARs belongs to China, they retain their own policies regarding time zones for historical reasons. Due to their locations, both are within the UTC+08,00 time zone, which is the same as the national standard — Beijing time. Xinjiang Time, also known as Ürümqi Time, is set due to its location in the westernmost part of the country. The time offset is UTC+06,00, which is two hours behind Beijing, and is shared with neighbouring Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Currently, timezone usage within Xinjiang is roughly split along the divide, with most ethnic Han following Beijing time. Some local authorities are now using both time standard side by side, the coexistence of two timezones within the same region causes some confusion among the local population, especially when inter-racial communication occur. Some ethnic Han in Xinjiang might not be aware of the existence of the UTC+6 Xinjiang Time because of language barrier, regardless, Beijing Time users in Xinjiang usually schedule their daily activities two hours later than those who live in eastern China. As such, stores and offices in Xinjiang are commonly opening from 10am to 7pm Beijing Time and this is known as the work/rest time in Xinjiang. Hong Kong maintains its own time authority after transfer of sovereignty in 1997, the Hong Kong Time is UTC+08,00 all year round, and daylight saving time has not been used since 1979. Greenwich Mean Time was adopted as the basis in 1904, before that, local time was determined by astronomical observations at Hong Kong Observatory using a 6-inch Lee Equatorial and a 3-inch Transit Circle. Macau maintains its own time authority after transfer of sovereignty in 1999, the Macau Standard Time is the time in Macau
25.
Chinese language
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Chinese is a group of related, but in many cases mutually unintelligible, language varieties, forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Chinese is spoken by the Han majority and many ethnic groups in China. Nearly 1.2 billion people speak some form of Chinese as their first language, the varieties of Chinese are usually described by native speakers as dialects of a single Chinese language, but linguists note that they are as diverse as a language family. The internal diversity of Chinese has been likened to that of the Romance languages, There are between 7 and 13 main regional groups of Chinese, of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin, followed by Wu, Min, and Yue. Most of these groups are mutually unintelligible, although some, like Xiang and certain Southwest Mandarin dialects, may share common terms, all varieties of Chinese are tonal and analytic. Standard Chinese is a form of spoken Chinese based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. It is the language of China and Taiwan, as well as one of four official languages of Singapore. It is one of the six languages of the United Nations. The written form of the language, based on the logograms known as Chinese characters, is shared by literate speakers of otherwise unintelligible dialects. Of the other varieties of Chinese, Cantonese is the spoken language and official in Hong Kong and Macau. It is also influential in Guangdong province and much of Guangxi, dialects of Southern Min, part of the Min group, are widely spoken in southern Fujian, with notable variants also spoken in neighboring Taiwan and in Southeast Asia. Hakka also has a diaspora in Taiwan and southeast Asia. Shanghainese and other Wu varieties are prominent in the lower Yangtze region of eastern China, Chinese can be traced back to a hypothetical Sino-Tibetan proto-language. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty, as the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have sought to promulgate a unified standard. Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, in addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach, and are often also sensitive border zones. Without a secure reconstruction of proto-Sino-Tibetan, the structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, the earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BCE in the late Shang dynasty
26.
Pinyin
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Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
27.
Jyutping
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Jyutping is a romanisation system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong, an academic group, in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanisation Scheme, the LSHK promotes the use of this romanisation system. The name Jyutping is a contraction consisting of the first Chinese characters of the terms Jyut6jyu5, only the finals m and ng can be used as standalone nasal syllables. ^ ^ ^ Referring to the pronunciation of these words. There are nine tones in six distinct tone contours in Cantonese, however, as three of the nine are entering tones, which only appear in syllables ending with p, t, and k, they do not have separate tone numbers in Jyutping. Jyutping and the Yale Romanisation of Cantonese represent Cantonese pronunciations with the letters in, The initials, b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw. The vowel, aa, a, e, i, o, u, the coda, i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k. But they differ in the following, The vowels eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ respectively in Jyutping, the initial j represents /j/ in Jyutping whereas y is used instead in Yale. The initial z represents /ts/ in Jyutping whereas j is used instead in Yale, the initial c represents /tsʰ/ in Jyutping whereas ch is used instead in Yale. In Jyutping, if no consonant precedes the vowel yu, then the initial j is appended before the vowel, in Yale, the corresponding initial y is never appended before yu under any circumstances. Jyutping defines three finals not in Yale, eu /ɛːu/, em /ɛːm/, and ep /ɛːp/ and these three finals are used in colloquial Cantonese words, such as deu6, lem2, and gep6. To represent tones, only tone numbers are used in Jyutping whereas Yale traditionally uses tone marks together with the letter h. Jyutping and Cantonese Pinyin represent Cantonese pronunciations with the letters in, The initials, b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw. The vowel, aa, a, e, i, o, u, the coda, i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k. But they have differences, The vowel oe represents both /ɵ/ and /œː/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ respectively in Jyutping. The vowel y represents /y/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas both yu and i are used in Jyutping, the initial dz represents /ts/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas z is used instead in Jyutping. The initial ts represents /tsʰ/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas c is used instead in Jyutping. To represent tones, the numbers 1 to 9 are usually used in Cantonese Pinyin, however, only the numbers 1 to 6 are used in Jyutping
28.
Yue Chinese
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Yue or Yueh is one of the primary branches of Chinese spoken in southern China, particularly the provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi, collectively known as Liangguang. The name Cantonese is often used for the branch, but linguists prefer to reserve that name for the variety of Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Macau. Taishanese, from the area of Jiangmen located southwest of Guangzhou, was the language of most of the 19th-century emigrants from Guangdong to Southeast Asia. Most later migrants have been speakers of Cantonese, Yue varieties are not mutually intelligible with other varieties of Chinese. The prototypical use of the name Cantonese in English is for the Yue variety of Guangzhou, in Chinese, people of Hong Kong and Macau, as well as Cantonese immigrants abroad, usually call their language Gwóngdùng wá speech of Guangdong. The people of Guangdong and Guangxi do not use that term and they also use baahk wá on its own to refer to the Guangzhou dialect. It is also used in Guangxi to refer to Yue varieties, as for example in an expression like 南寧白話, the area of China south of the Nanling Mountains, known as the Lingnan, was originally home to peoples known to the Chinese as the Hundred Yue. Large-scale Han Chinese migration to the area began after the Qin conquest of the region in 214 BC, successive waves followed at times of upheaval in North China, such as the falls of the Han, Tang and Song dynasties. The most popular route was via the Xiang River, which the Qin had connected to the Li River by the Lingqu Canal, a secondary route followed the Gan River and then the Bei Jiang into eastern Guangdong. Yue-speakers were later joined by Hakka-speakers following the North River route, after the fall of Qin, the Lingnan area was part of the independent state of Nanyue for about a century, before being incorporated in the Han empire. After the Tang dynasty collapsed, much of the Yue area became part of the Southern Han, one of the states of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. The waves of Chinese migration assimilated huge numbers of aborigines, with the result that todays Yue-speaking population is descended from both groups. The colloquial layers of Yue varieties contain elements influenced by the Tai languages formerly spoken widely in the area and still spoken by people such as the Zhuang. The port city of Guangzhou lies in the middle of Pearl River Delta, with access to the interior via the West River, North River and East River and it has been the economic centre of the Lingnan region since Qin times, when it was an important shipbuilding centre. By 660, it was the largest port in China, part of a network stretching as far as Arabia. During the Southern Song, it became the cultural centre of the region. Like many other Chinese varieties it developed a distinct literary layer associated with the tradition of reading the classics. The Guangzhou dialect was used in the popular Yuèōu, Mùyú and Nányīn folksong genres, there was also a small amount of vernacular literature, written with Chinese characters extended with a number of non-traditional characters for Cantonese words
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Simplified Chinese characters
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Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of the two character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the Peoples Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to increase literacy and they are officially used in the Peoples Republic of China and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau. Overseas Chinese communities generally tend to use traditional characters, Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name above or colloquially. Strictly, the latter refers to simplifications of character structure or body, character forms that have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms, some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. Some simplified characters are very dissimilar to and unpredictably different from traditional characters and this often leads opponents not well-versed in the method of simplification to conclude that the overall process of character simplification is also arbitrary. In reality, the methods and rules of simplification are few, on the other hand, proponents of simplification often flaunt a few choice simplified characters as ingenious inventions, when in fact these have existed for hundreds of years as ancient variants. However, the Chinese government never officially dropped its goal of further simplification in the future, in August 2009, the PRC began collecting public comments for a modified list of simplified characters. The new Table of General Standard Chinese Characters consisting of 8,105 characters was promulgated by the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China on June 5,2013, cursive written text almost always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print have always existed, they date back to as early as the Qin dynasty, One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lubi Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China, Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and it was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished. Fu Sinian, a leader of the May Fourth Movement, called Chinese characters the writing of ox-demons, lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, If Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die. Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the problems in China during that time
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Traditional Chinese characters
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Traditional Chinese characters are Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most commonly the characters in the character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong. Currently, a number of overseas Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between both sets. In contrast, simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China, Singapore, the debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been a long-running issue among Chinese communities. Although simplified characters are taught and endorsed by the government of Mainland China, Traditional characters are used informally in regions in China primarily in handwriting and also used for inscriptions and religious text. They are often retained in logos or graphics to evoke yesteryear, nonetheless, the vast majority of media and communications in China is dominated by simplified characters. Taiwan has never adopted Simplified Chinese characters since it is ruled by the Republic of China, the use of simplified characters in official documents is even prohibited by the government in Taiwan. Simplified characters are not well understood in general, although some stroke simplifications that have incorporated into Simplified Chinese are in common use in handwriting. For example, while the name of Taiwan is written as 臺灣, similarly, in Hong Kong and Macau, Traditional Chinese has been the legal written form since colonial times. In recent years, because of the influx of mainland Chinese tourists, today, even government websites use simplified Chinese, as they answer to the Beijing government. This has led to concerns by residents to protect their local heritage. In Southeast Asia, the Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative regarding simplification, while major public universities are teaching simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications like the Chinese Commercial News, World News, and United Daily News still use traditional characters, on the other hand, the Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified. Aside from local newspapers, magazines from Hong Kong, such as the Yazhou Zhoukan, are found in some bookstores. In case of film or television subtitles on DVD, the Chinese dub that is used in Philippines is the same as the one used in Taiwan and this is because the DVDs belongs to DVD Region Code 3. Hence, most of the subtitles are in Traditional Characters, overseas Chinese in the United States have long used traditional characters. A major influx of Chinese immigrants to the United States occurred during the half of the 19th century. Therefore, the majority of Chinese language signage in the United States, including street signs, Traditional Chinese characters are called several different names within the Chinese-speaking world
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Portuguese language
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Portuguese is a Romance language and the sole official language of Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Angola, and São Tomé and Príncipe. It also has co-official language status in East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, Portuguese is part of the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, and has kept some Celtic phonology. Portuguese is also termed the language of Camões, after Luís Vaz de Camões, one of the greatest literary figures in the Portuguese language and author of the Portuguese epic poem, the museum is the first of its kind in the world. In 2015 the museum was destroyed in a fire, but there are plans to reconstruct it, when the Romans arrived in the Iberian Peninsula in 216 BCE, they brought the Latin language with them, from which all Romance languages descend. Between 409 CE and 711 CE, as the Roman Empire collapsed in Western Europe, Portuguese evolved from the medieval language, known today by linguists as Galician-Portuguese, Old Portuguese or Old Galician, of the northwestern medieval Kingdom of Galicia. It is in Latin administrative documents of the 9th century that written Galician-Portuguese words and this phase is known as Proto-Portuguese, which lasted from the 9th century until the 12th-century independence of the County of Portugal from the Kingdom of León, by then reigning over Galicia. In the first part of the Galician-Portuguese period, the language was used for documents. For some time, it was the language of preference for poetry in Christian Hispania. Portugal became an independent kingdom in 1139, under King Afonso I of Portugal, in the second period of Old Portuguese, in the 15th and 16th centuries, with the Portuguese discoveries, the language was taken to many regions of Africa, Asia and the Americas. The language continued to be popular in parts of Asia until the 19th century, some Portuguese-speaking Christian communities in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Indonesia preserved their language even after they were isolated from Portugal. The end of the Old Portuguese period was marked by the publication of the Cancioneiro Geral by Garcia de Resende, Most literate Portuguese speakers were also literate in Latin, and thus they easily adopted Latin words into their writing—and eventually speech—in Portuguese. Portuguese is the language of the majority of people in Brazil and Portugal, perhaps 75% of the population of Angola speaks Portuguese natively, and 85% are fluent. Just over 40% of the population of Mozambique are native speakers of Portuguese, Portuguese is also spoken natively by 30% of the population in Guinea-Bissau, and a Portuguese-based creole is understood by all. No data is available for Cape Verde, but almost all the population is bilingual, there are also significant Portuguese speaking immigrant communities in many countries including Andorra, Bermuda, Canada, France, Japan, Jersey, Namibia, Paraguay, Macau, Switzerland, Venezuela. In some parts of former Portuguese India, namely Goa and Daman and Diu, in 2014, an estimated 1,500 students were learning Portuguese in Goa. Equatorial Guinea made an application for full membership to the CPLP in June 2010. In 2011, Portuguese became its official language and, in July 2014. Portuguese is a subject in The school curriculum in Uruguay
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Pearl River (China)
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The Pearl River, also known by its Chinese name Zhujiang and formerly often known as the Canton River, is an extensive river system in southern China. The name Pearl River is also used as a catch-all for the watersheds of the Xi, Bei. These rivers are all considered tributaries of the Pearl River because they share a common delta, as well as referring to the system as a whole, the Pearl River name is also applied to a specific branch within the system. This Pearl River is the widest distributary within the delta, although considerably short, the waters that converge east of the Bei Jiang are first referred to as the Pearl River just north of Guangzhou. The Pearl River is famed as the river flows through Guangzhou. The Pearl Rivers estuary, Bocca Tigris, is dredged so as to keep it open for ocean vessels. This bay separates Macau and Zhuhai from Hong Kong and Shenzhen, the Pearl River is so named because of the pearl-colored shells that lie at the bottom of the river in the section that flows through the city of Guangzhou. A500 kV-power line, suspended from three of the tallest pylons in the world, the Pylons of Pearl River Crossing, crosses the river near its mouth. Zhujiang Brewery, one of the three largest domestic breweries in China, is located on the Pearl River Delta within the city of Guangzhou
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Estuary
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An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a zone between river environments and maritime environments. They are subject both to marine influences—such as tides, waves, and the influx of saline water—and to riverine influences—such as flows of fresh water and sediment. The inflows of sea water and fresh water provide high levels of nutrients both in the water column and in sediment, making estuaries among the most productive natural habitats in the world. Most existing estuaries formed during the Holocene epoch with the flooding of river-eroded or glacially scoured valleys when the sea began to rise about 10. Estuaries are typically classified according to their geomorphological features or to water-circulation patterns, the banks of many estuaries are amongst the most heavily populated areas of the world, with about 60% of the worlds population living along estuaries and the coast. The word estuary is derived from the Latin word aestuarium meaning tidal inlet of the sea, there have been many definitions proposed to describe an estuary. However, this definition excludes a number of water bodies such as coastal lagoons. This broad definition also includes fjords, lagoons, river mouths, an estuary is a dynamic ecosystem having a connection to the open sea through which the sea water enters with the rhythm of the tides. The sea water entering the estuary is diluted by the water flowing from rivers. The pattern of dilution varies between different estuaries and depends on the volume of water, the tidal range. Drowned river valleys are known as coastal plain estuaries. In places where the sea level is rising relative to the land, sea water progressively penetrates into river valleys and this is the most common type of estuary in temperate climates. Well-studied estuaries include the Severn Estuary in the United Kingdom and the Ems Dollard along the Dutch-German border, the width-to-depth ratio of these estuaries is typically large, appearing wedge-shaped in the inner part and broadening and deepening seaward. Water depths rarely exceed 30 m, examples of this type of estuary in the U. S. are the Hudson River, Chesapeake Bay, and Delaware Bay along the Mid-Atlantic coast, and Galveston Bay and Tampa Bay along the Gulf Coast. They are relatively common in tropical and subtropical locations and these estuaries are semi-isolated from ocean waters by barrier beaches. Formation of barrier beaches partially encloses the estuary, with only narrow inlets allowing contact with the ocean waters, bar-built estuaries typically develop on gently sloping plains located along tectonically stable edges of continents and marginal sea coasts. They are extensive along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the U. S. in areas with active coastal deposition of sediments, barrier beaches form in shallow water and are generally parallel to the shoreline, resulting in long, narrow estuaries
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South China Sea
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The South China Sea is a marginal sea that is part of the Pacific Ocean, encompassing an area from the Karimata and Malacca Straits to the Strait of Taiwan of around 3,500,000 square kilometres. The areas importance largely results from one-third of the worlds shipping sailing through its waters, the sea and its mostly uninhabited islands are subject to competing claims of sovereignty by several countries. These claims are reflected in the variety of names used for the islands. South China Sea is the dominant term used in English for the sea, and this name is a result of early European interest in the sea as a route from Europe and South Asia to the trading opportunities of China. In the sixteenth century Portuguese sailors called it the China Sea, the International Hydrographic Organization refers to the sea as South China Sea. The Classic of Poetry, Zuo Zhuan, and Guoyu classics of the Spring and Autumn period also referred to the sea, Nan Hai, the South Sea, was one of the Four Seas of Chinese literature. There are three other seas, one for each of the four cardinal directions, during the Eastern Han dynasty, Chinas rulers called the Sea Zhang Hai. Fei Hai became popular during the Southern and Northern Dynasties period, usage of the current Chinese name, Nan Hai, became gradually widespread during the Qing Dynasty. In Southeast Asia it was called the Champa Sea or Sea of Cham. The majority of the sea came under Japanese naval control during World War II following the acquisition of many surrounding South East Asian territories in 1941. Japan calls the sea Minami Shina Kai South China Sea and this was written 南支那海 until 2004, when the Japanese Foreign Ministry and other departments switched the spelling 南シナ海, which has become the standard usage in Japan. In China, it is called the South Sea, 南海 Nánhǎi, in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, it was long called the South China Sea, with the part within Philippine territorial waters often called the Luzon Sea, Dagat Luzon, by the Philippines. However, following an escalation of the Spratly Islands dispute in 2011, a PAGASA spokesperson said that the sea to the east of the Philippines will continue to be called the Philippine Sea. In September 2012, Philippine President Benigno Aquino III signed Administrative Order No, states and territories with borders on the sea include, the Peoples Republic of China, the Republic of China, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, Singapore, and Vietnam. Major rivers that flow into the South China Sea include the Pearl, Min, Jiulong, Red, Mekong, Rajang, Pahang, Pampanga, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the South China Sea as follows, On the South. From Fuki Kaku the North point of Formosa to Kiushan Tao on to the South point of Haitan Tao, the Mainland, the Southern limit of the Gulf of Thailand and the East coast of the Malay Peninsula. The sea lies above a drowned continental shelf, during recent ice ages global sea level was hundreds of metres lower, the South China Sea opened around 45 million years ago when the Dangerous Ground rifted away from southern China. Extension culminated in seafloor spreading around 30 million years ago, a process that propagated to the SW resulting in the V-shaped basin we see today, extension ceased around 17 million years ago
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Chinese emigration
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Waves of Chinese emigration have happened throughout history. Most immigrants were peasants and manual labourers, called coolies, who emigrated to work in countries such as the Americas, Australia, South Africa. According to Lynn Pans book Sons of the Yellow Emperor, the Chinese coolie emigration began after slavery was abolished throughout the British possessions, facing a desperate shortage of manpower, European merchants looked to replace African slaves with indentured labourers from China and India. A British Guiana planter found what he was looking for in the Chinese labourers, their strong physique, their eagerness to make money, the labourers lives were very harsh. Some labor recruiters promised good pay and good working conditions to get men signed onto three-year labor contracts and it was recorded on one pepper estate, fifty coolies hired, only two survived in half a year. Most coolies were treated badly, and many died en route to South America, usually, they were cheated of their wages and were unable to return to China after their contracts expired. 210 BCE, Qin Shi Huang dispatched Xu Fu to sail overseas in search of elixirs of immortality, accompanied by 3,000 virgin boys, records suggest Xu Fus expedition settled in Honshu, Japan. 661 CE, under the Tang dynasty, Zheng Guo Xi of Nan An, 7–8th century, the Arabs recorded large numbers of Tang traders residing at the mouth of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and they had families there. 10th century, Arab trader Masuoti recorded in his Golden Ley, in the year 943 AD, he sailed past Srivijaya and saw many Chinese people farming there and these people migrated to Nanyang to evade chaos caused by war during the Tang dynasty of China. Many Chinese merchants chose to settle down in the Southeast Asian ports such as Champa, Cambodia, Java, and Sumatra, Borneo, Many Chinese lived in Borneo as recorded by Zheng He. Cambodia, Envoy of Yuan dynasty, Zhou Daguan recorded in his The Customs of Chenla, that there were many Chinese, especially sailors, Many intermarried with the local women. Champa, the Daoyi Zhilue documents Chinese merchants who went to Cham ports in Champa, married Cham women, a Chinese merchant from Quanzhou, Wang Yuanmao, traded extensively with Champa, and married a Cham princess. Han Chinese settlers came during the Malacca Empire in the early 15th century, the friendly diplomatic relations between China and Malacca culminated during the reign of Sultan Mansur Syah, who married the Chinese princess Hang Li Po. A senior minister of state and five hundred youths and maids of noble birth accompanied the princess to Malacca, admiral Zheng He had also brought along 100 bachelors to Malacca. The descendants of two groups of people, mostly from Fujian province, are called the Baba and Nyonya. Java, Zheng Hes compatriot Ma Huan recorded in his book Yingyai Shenglan that large numbers of Chinese lived in the Majapahit Empire on Java, the place where the Chinese lived was called New Village, with many originally from Canton, Zhangzhou and Quanzhou. Ryūkyū Kingdom, Many Chinese moved to Ryukyu to serve the government or engage in business during this period, the Ming dynasty Chinese sent from Fujian 36 Chinese families at the request of the Ryukyuan King to manage oceanic dealings in the kingdom in 1392 during the Hongwu Emperors reign. Many Ryukyuan officials were descended from these Chinese immigrants, being born in China or having Chinese grandfathers and they assisted in the Ryukyuans in advancing their technology and diplomatic relations
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Western world
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The Western world or the West is a term usually referring to different nations, depending on the context, most often including at least part of Europe. There are many accepted definitions about what they all have in common, the Western world is also known as the Occident. The concept of the Western part of the earth has its roots in Greco-Roman civilization in Europe, before the Cold War era, the traditional Western viewpoint identified Western Civilization with the Western Christian countries and culture. Its political usage was changed by the antagonism during the Cold War in the mid-to-late 20th Century. The term originally had a literal geographic meaning, Western culture was influenced by many older great civilizations of the ancient Near East, such as Phoenicia, Minoan Crete, Sumer, Babylonia, and also Ancient Egypt. It originated in the Mediterranean basin and its vicinity, Greece, over time, their associated empires grew first to the east and west to include the rest of Mediterranean and Black Sea coastal areas, conquering and absorbing. Later, they expanded to the north of the Mediterranean Sea to include Western, Central, numerous times, this expansion was accompanied by Christian missionaries, who attempted to proselytize Christianity. There is debate among some as to whether Latin America is in a category of its own, specifically, Western culture may imply, a Biblical Christian cultural influence in spiritual thinking, customs and either ethic or moral traditions, around the Post-Classical Era and after. European cultural influences concerning artistic, musical, folkloric, ethic and oral traditions, the concept of Western culture is generally linked to the classical definition of the Western world. In this definition, Western culture is the set of literary, scientific, political, artistic, much of this set of traditions and knowledge is collected in the Western canon. The term has come to apply to countries whose history is marked by European immigration or settlement, such as the Americas, and Oceania. The geopolitical divisions in Europe that created a concept of East and West originated in the Roman Empire, Roman Catholic Western and Central Europe, as such, maintained a distinct identity particularly as it began to redevelop during the Renaissance. Even following the Protestant Reformation, Protestant Europe continued to see itself as more tied to Roman Catholic Europe than other parts of the civilized world. Use of the term West as a cultural and geopolitical term developed over the course of the Age of Exploration as Europe spread its culture to other parts of the world. Additionally, closer contacts between the West and Asia and other parts of the world in recent times have continued to cloud the use, herodotus considered the Persian Wars of the early 5th century BC a conflict of Europa versus Asia. The terms West and East were not used by any Greek author to describe that conflict, the Great Schism and the Fourth Crusade confirmed this deviation. The Renaissance in the West emerged partly from currents within the Roman Empire, Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew from a city-state founded on the Italian Peninsula about the 9th century BC to a massive empire straddling the Mediterranean Sea. In its 12-century existence, Roman civilization shifted from a monarchy, to a republic, nonetheless, despite its great legacy, a number of factors led to the eventual decline of the Roman Empire
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Chinese Americans
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Chinese Americans, also known as the American Chinese, are Americans who have full or partial Han Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute one group of overseas Chinese and also a subgroup of East Asian Americans, the Chinese American community is the largest overseas Chinese community outside of Asia. It is also the third largest in the Chinese diaspora, behind the Chinese communities in Thailand, the Chinese American community comprises the largest ethnic group of Asian Americans, comprising 25. 9% of the Asian American population as of 2010. Americans of Chinese descent, including those with partial Chinese ancestry constitute 1. 2% of the total U. S. population as of 2010, according to the 2010 census, the Chinese American population numbered approximately 3.8 million. In 2010, half of Chinese-born people living in the United States resided in the states of California, the first Chinese immigrants arrived in 1820, according to U. S. government records. 325 men are known to have arrived before the 1849 California Gold Rush, There were 25,000 immigrants by 1852, and 105,465 by 1880, most of whom lived on the West Coast. They formed over a tenth of Californias population, nearly all of the early immigrants were young males with low educational levels from six districts in Guangdong Province. In the 1850s, Chinese workers migrated to the United States, first to work in the mines, but also to take agricultural jobs. As the numbers of Chinese laborers increased, so did the strength of anti-Chinese attitude among other workers in the American economy, the Chinese laborers worked out well and thousands more were recruited until the railroads completion in 1869. Chinese labor provided the workforce needed to build the majority of the Central Pacifics difficult route through the Sierra Nevada mountains. American objections to Chinese immigration took many forms, and generally stemmed from economic and cultural tensions, Most Chinese laborers who came to the United States did so in order to send money back to China to support their families there. At the same time, they also had to repay loans to the Chinese merchants who paid their passage to America and these financial pressures left them little choice but to work for whatever wages they could. Non-Chinese laborers often required much higher wages to support their wives and children in the United States, therefore, many of the non-Chinese workers in the United States came to resent the Chinese laborers, who might squeeze them out of their jobs. Some advocates of anti-Chinese legislation therefore argued that admitting Chinese into the United States lowered the cultural and moral standards of American society, others used a more overtly racist argument for limiting immigration from East Asia, and expressed concern about the integrity of American racial composition. Because anti-Chinese discrimination and efforts to stop Chinese immigration violated the 1868 Burlingame-Seward Treaty with China, the Chinese population rose from 2,716 in 1851 to 63,000 by 1871. In the decade 1861-70,64,301 were recorded as arriving, 77% were located in California, with the rest scattered across the West, the South, and New England. Most came from Southern China looking for a life, escaping a high rate of poverty left after the Taiping Rebellion. In 1879, advocates of immigration restriction succeeded in introducing and passing legislation in Congress to limit the number of Chinese arriving to fifteen per ship or vessel, republican President Rutherford B. Hayes vetoed the bill because it violated U. S. treaty agreements with China
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Chinese Canadians
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Chinese Canadians are Canadians of full or partial Chinese ancestry. They comprise a subgroup of East Asian Canadians which is a subgroup of Asian Canadians. Canadians of Chinese descent, including mixed Chinese and other origins, make up about four percent of the Canadian population. The Chinese Canadian community is the largest ethnic group of Asian Canadians, most of them are concentrated within the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The five metropolitan areas with the largest Chinese Canadian populations are the Greater Toronto Area, Metro Vancouver, Greater Montreal, Calgary Region, the first record of Chinese in what is known as Canada today can be dated back to 1788. The railway as a whole consisted of 28 such sections, 93% of which were constructed by workers of European origin. When British Columbia agreed to join Confederation in 1871, one of the conditions was that the Dominion government build a railway linking B. C. with eastern Canada within 10 years. British Columbia politicians and their electorate agitated for a program from the British Isles to provide this railway labour. Many workers from Guangdong Province arrived to build the Canadian Pacific Railway in the 19th century as did Chinese veterans of the gold rushes. Their willingness to endure hardship for low wages enraged fellow non-Chinese workers who thought they were unnecessarily complicating the labour market situations. From the passage of the Chinese Immigration Act in 1885, the Canadian government began to charge a head tax for each Chinese person trying to immigrate to Canada. The Chinese were the ethnic group that had to pay such a tax. With this act, the Chinese received similar treatment to blacks before them who Canada also had specifically excluded from immigration on the basis of race. During the next 25 years, more and more laws against the Chinese were passed, most jobs were closed to Chinese men and women. Many Chinese opened their own restaurants and laundry businesses, in British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Ontario, Chinese employers were not allowed to hire white females, so most Chinese businesses became Chinese-only. Some of those Chinese Canadian workers settled in Canada after the railway was constructed, most could not bring the rest of their families, including immediate relatives, due to government restrictions and enormous processing fees. During the Great Depression, life was even tougher for the Chinese than it was for other Canadians, in Alberta, for example, Chinese-Canadians received relief payments of less than half the amount paid to other Canadians. Census data from 1931 shows that there were 1,240 men to every 100 women in Chinese-Canadian communities, to protest The Chinese Exclusion Act, Chinese-Canadians closed their businesses and boycotted Dominion Day celebrations every July 1, which became known as “Humiliation Day” by the Chinese-Canadians
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Chinese Australians
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Chinese Australians are Australian citizens of Chinese ancestry. Chinese Australians are one of the largest groups of Overseas Chinese people, Chinese Australians are also a subgroup of East Asian Australians and represent the single largest minority in the country constituting approximately forty-percent of the Asian Australian population. As a whole, Australian residents identified themselves as having Chinese ancestry make up four percent of Australias population or approximately 865,000 people as of 2011. The early history of Chinese Australians had involved significant immigration from villages of the Pearl River Delta in Southern China, less well known are the kind of society Chinese Australians came from, the families they left behind and what their intentions were in coming. Many Chinese were lured to Australia by the gold rush and they sent money to their families in the villages, and regularly visited their families and retired to the village after many years, working as a market gardener, shopkeeper or cabinet maker. Chinese Australians record high levels of educational attainment that match and occasionally surpass the national average, Chinese peoples have a long and continuing role in Australian history. There were early links between China and Australia when Macau and Canton were used as an important trading ports with the fledgling colony, mak Sai Ying was the first officially recorded Chinese migrant in 1818. After his arrival he spent some time farming before, in 1829, early 19th Century migration was in limited numbers and sporadic, primarily those who came in this period were free merchants or adventurers and, the more common, indentured labourers. The Australian Gold Rushes are what first lured thousands of Chinese to the country, in 1855 in Melbourne there were 11,493 Chinese arrivals. This was startling considering that barely five years previous, Melbournes entire population had only been around 25,000 people, due to the widespread racists sentiments in parliament and on the goldfields, the first of many immigration restrictions and Chinese targeting laws was passed in late 1855. However, due to the long, poorly regulated borders between the colonies of Australia the numbers of Chinese on the continued to swell. Upon the goldfields Chinese peoples faced many hardships, there were violent anti-Chinese riots, the Buckland Riot, the Lambing Flats Riots, as well as general discrimination and prejudice. However, there were many establishments in this period that would have an effect on the history of Australia. One of these establishments were the Chinese camps, which most often, later, there was also the establishment and the consolidation of power for Chinese societies, many of these are still active in Australia today. These societies provided support and community for the Chinese in the colonies, after the gold rushes the numbers of Chinese living in the cities swelled and their businesses and industries contributed much to growth of Melbourne and Sydney in the late 19th century. Mei Quong Tart was a prominent business figure in Sydney, however, there were very few Chinese women migrating to Australia. At one point in the 1860s the numbers of Chinese in Australia was around 40,000, of these, it is believed only 12, were women. This gender imbalance meant that some Chinese men married women of European descent, anti-Chinese sentiment also strongly contributed to the establishment of the Federation of Australia
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Chinese Latin American
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Asian Latin Americans are Latin Americans of East Asian, Western Asian, Southeast Asian or South Asian descent. Asian Latin Americans have a history in the region, starting with Filipinos in the 16th century. The peak of Asian immigration occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries, there are currently more than four million Asian Latin Americans, nearly 1% of Latin Americas population. Chinese and Japanese are the groups largest ancestries, other ones include Filipinos, Koreans. Brazil is home to the largest population of Asian Latin Americans, the highest ratio of any country in the region is 5%, in Peru. There has been notable emigration from these communities in recent decades, for two and a half centuries many Filipinos sailed on the Manila-Acapulco Galleons, assisting in the Spanish Empires monopoly in trade. Most Chinese-Latin Americans descended from the Coolie slave trade, and most are found in the Caribbean, especially in Cuba and they are also closely related to Afro-Asian people in Latin America. Most Asians, however, arrived in the 19th and 20th century as workers or economic migrants. Today, the majority of Asian Latin Americans are of Chinese, Japanese. Japanese migration mostly came to a halt after World War II, while Korean migration mostly came to an end by the 1980s and Chinese migration remains ongoing in a number of countries. Settlement of war refugees has been minor, a few dozen ex-North Korean soldiers went to Argentina and Chile after the Korean War. Four and a half million Latin Americans are of Asian descent, the number may be millions higher, even more so if all who have partial ancestry are included. Nicaragua is home to 12,000 ethnic Chinese, the majority reside in Managua, smaller communities of Chinese, numbering just in the hundreds or thousands, are also found in Ecuador and various other Latin American countries. The largest Korean communities are in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Guatemala, Paraguay, Colombia, Ecuador, there are around 12,918 living in Guatemala. There is also a Hmong community in Argentina, the French Overseas Departments of French Guiana, Guadeloupe & Martinique have large populations of people of Tamil Indian descent. Colombia, Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Panama, and Venezuela also have small Asian Indian communities, Japanese Peruvians have a considerable economic position in Peru. Brazil is home to the largest Japanese community outside Japan, numbering about 1.7 million with ancestry alone, Brazil is also home to 10 thousand Indians,5 thousand Vietnamese people,4.5 thousand Afghans,2.9 thousand Indonesians and 1 thousand Filipinos. Canada has been a destination for Asian Latin American emigration, the immigrants usually settle in the largest cities, such as Vancouver and Toronto, and integrate into the overall Asian Canadian communities
41.
Southeast Asia
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Southeast Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies near the intersection of geological plates, with seismic and volcanic activity. Southeast Asia consists of two regions, Mainland Southeast Asia, also known historically as Indochina, comprising Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar. Maritime Southeast Asia, comprising Indonesia, East Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, East Timor, Brunei, Cocos Islands, definitions of Southeast Asia vary, but most definitions include the area represented by the countries listed below. All of the states are members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the area, together with part of South Asia, was widely known as the East Indies or simply the Indies until the 20th century. Sovereignty issues exist over some territories in the South China Sea, Papua New Guinea has stated that it might join ASEAN, and is currently an observer. Southeast Asia is geographically divided into two subregions, namely Mainland Southeast Asia and Maritime Southeast Asia, Mainland Southeast Asia includes, Maritime Southeast Asia includes, The Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India are geographically considered part of Southeast Asia. Eastern Bangladesh and the Seven Sister States of India are culturally part of Southeast Asia, the eastern half of Indonesia and East Timor are considered to be biogeographically part of Oceania. Homo sapiens reached the region by around 45,000 years ago, homo floresiensis also lived in the area up until 12,000 years ago, when they became extinct. Austronesian people, who form the majority of the population in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, East Timor. Solheim and others have shown evidence for a Nusantao maritime trading network ranging from Vietnam to the rest of the archipelago as early as 5000 BC to 1 AD. The peoples of Southeast Asia, especially those of Austronesian descent, have been seafarers for thousands of years and their vessels, such as the vinta, were ocean-worthy. Magellans voyage records how much more manoeuvrable their vessels were, as compared to the European ships, Passage through the Indian Ocean aided the colonisation of Madagascar by the Austronesian people, as well as commerce between West Asia and Southeast Asia. Gold from Sumatra is thought to have reached as far west as Rome and this was later replaced by Hinduism. Theravada Buddhism soon followed in 525, in the 15th century, Islamic influences began to enter. This forced the last Hindu court in Indonesia to retreat to Bali, in Mainland Southeast Asia, Burma, Cambodia and Thailand retained the Theravada form of Buddhism, brought to them from Sri Lanka. This type of Buddhism was fused with the Hindu-influenced Khmer culture, very little is known about Southeast Asian religious beliefs and practices before the advent of Indian merchants and religious influences from the 2nd century BCE onwards. Prior to the 13th century CE, Hinduism and Buddhism were the religions in Southeast Asia
42.
Chinatown
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A Chinatown is historically any ethnic enclave, of Chinese or Han people outside of Mainland China or Taiwan, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as Chinatown exist throughout the world, including the Americas, Europe, Africa, Australasia, a Chinatown, as a Chinese enclave, is defined as. Any small, distinct area or group enclosed or isolated within a larger group, the development of most Chinatowns typically start with mass migration to an area having zero or very few Chinese. The Oxford Dictionary defines Chinatown as, a district of any non-Chinese town, especially a city or seaport, in which the population is predominantly of Chinese origin. However, some Chinatowns may have little to do with China, some Vietnamese enclaves are in fact a citys second Chinatown, and some Chinatowns are in fact pan-Asian, meaning they could also be counted as a Koreatown or Little India. One example includes Asiatown in Cleveland, Ohio and it was initially referred to as a Chinatown but was subsequently renamed due to the influx of non-Chinese Asian Americans who opened businesses there. Today the district acts as a factor for the Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, Japanese, Filipino, Indian, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, Nepalese. As isolated from the population as Hispanics. This contrasts with narrower definitions, where the only described Chinatown in a city setting. In some cities in Spain, the term denotes an area, neighborhood or district where prostitution or other related to the sex industry are concentrated. Some examples of this are the Chinatown of Salamanca and the Chinatown of Barcelona, trading centres populated predominantly by Chinese men and their native spouses have long existed throughout Southeast Asia. Emigration to other parts of the world from China accelerated in the 1860s with the signing of the Treaty of Peking, early emigrants came primarily from the coastal provinces of Guangdong and Fujian in southeastern China – where the people generally speak Cantonese, Hakka, Teochew and Hokkien. As conditions in China have improved in recent decades, many Chinatowns have lost their initial mission, as net migration slows, the smaller Chinatowns have slowly decayed, often to the point of becoming purely historical and no longer serving as ethnic enclaves. Binondos Chinatown located in Manila, Philippines is the oldest Chinatown in the world, several Asian Chinatowns, although not yet called by that name, have a long history. Those in Nagasaki, Japan, Binondo in Manila, Hoi An, glodok, the Chinese quarter of Jakarta, Indonesia, dates to 1740. Chinese presence in India dates back to the 5th century AD, a Chinatown first appeared in the Indian city of Calcutta and subsequently in Mumbai and Chennai. The first Chinese settler in Calcutta was Young Atchew around 1780, the Chinatown centered on Yaowarat Road in Bangkok, Thailand, was founded at the same time as the city itself, in 1782. Many Chinese immigrants arrived in Liverpool in the late 1850s in the employ of the Blue Funnel Shipping Line, the commercial shipping line created strong trade links between the cities of Shanghai, Hong Kong and Liverpool, mainly in the importation of silk, cotton and tea
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