Guangdong Province - China

Guangdong (simplified Chinese: 广东省; traditional Chinese: 廣東省; pinyin: Guǎngdōng Shěng) is a province on the southern coast of People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province. It surpassed Henan and Sichuan to become the most populous province in China in January 2005, registering 79 million permanent residents and 31 million migrants who lived in the province for at least six months of the year. The provincial capital Guangzhou and economic hub Shenzhen are amongst the most populous and important cities in China.
Guangdong is one of China's most prosperous provinces, its GDP has topped the rankings since 1989 amongst all provincial-level divisions. According to provincial annual preliminary statistics, Guangdong's GDP in 2009 reached CNY3,908,159 million, or US$572,121 million, making its economy roughly the same size as that of Turkey or Indonesia. The Guangdong province has the third highest GDP per capita in China, after Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. The province contributes approximately 12% of China's national economic output, and is home to the production facilities and offices of a wide-ranging set of multinational and Chinese corporations. Guangdong also hosts the largest Import and Export Fair in China called the Canton Fair in Guangdong's capital city Guangzhou.
Guangdong faces the South China Sea to the south and has a total of 4,300 km of coastline. Leizhou Peninsula is on the southwestern end of the province. There are a few inactive volcanoes on Leizhou Peninsula. The Pearl River Delta is the convergent point of three upstream rivers: the East River, North River, and West River. The river delta is filled with hundreds of small islands. The province is geographically separated from the north by a few mountain ranges collectively called the Southern Mountain Range (南岭). The highest peak in the province is Shikengkong 1,902 meters above sea level.
Guangdong borders Fujian province to the northeast, Jiangxi and Hunan provinces to the north, Guangxi autonomous region to the west, and Hong Kong and Macau Special Administrative Regions to the south. Hainan province is offshore across from the Leizhou Peninsula. Certain of the Pratas Islands which have traditionally been regarded as part of Guangdong Province are administered by the Government of the Republic of China on Taiwan.
Cities around the Pearl River Delta include Dongguan, Foshan, Guangzhou, Huizhou, Jiangmen, Shenzhen, Shunde, Taishan, Zhongshan and Zhuhai. Other cities in the province include Chaozhou, Chenghai, Kaiping, Nanhai, Shantou, Shaoguan, Xinhui, Zhanjiang, Zhaoqing, Yangjiang and Yunfu.
Guangdong has a humid subtropical climate (tropical in the far south), with short, mild, dry, winters and long, hot, wet summers. Average daily highs in Guangzhou in January and July are 18 °C (64 °F) and 33 °C (91 °F) respectively, although the humidity makes it feel much hotter in summer. Frost is rare on the coast but may happen a few days each winter well inland.
The central region, which is also the political and economic center, is populated predominantly by Cantonese speakers, though the influx in the last three decades of millions of Putonghua-speaking immigrants has diminished Cantonese linguistic dominance somewhat. This region is associated with Cantonese cuisine (simplified Chinese: 粤菜; traditional Chinese: 粵菜). Cantonese opera (simplified Chinese: 粤剧; traditional Chinese: 粵劇) is a form of Chinese opera popular in Cantonese speaking areas. It is very famous. Related Yue dialects are spoken in most of the western half of the province.
The area comprising the cities of Chaozhou, Shantou and Jieyang in coastal east Guangdong, known as Chaoshan, forms its own cultural sphere. The Teochew people here, alongside with Hailufeng people in Shanwei, speak Teochew (simplified Chinese: 潮语, traditional Chinese: 潮語), which is a Min dialect closely related to Min-nan and their cuisine is Teochew cuisine(simplified Chinese: 潮州菜; traditional Chinese: 潮州菜). Teochew opera (simplified Chinese: 潮剧, traditional Chinese: 潮劇) is also very famous with a unique form.
The Hakka people live in large areas of Guangdong, including Huizhou, Meizhou, Shenzhen, Heyuan, Shaoguan and other areas. Much of the Eastern part of Guangdong is populated by the Hakka people except for the Chaozhou and Hailufeng area. Hakka culture include Hakka cuisine (客家菜), Han opera (simplified Chinese: 汉剧; traditional Chinese: 漢劇), Hakka Hanyue and sixian (traditional instrumental music) and Hakka folk songs (客家山歌).
Putonghua (Mandarin Chinese) is the language used in education and government and in areas where there are migrants from other provinces, above all in Shenzhen. Cantonese maintains a strong position in common usage and media, even in eastern areas of the province where the local dialects are non-Yue ones.