History
Guangdong was far away from the centre of ancient Chinese civilization in the north China plain. It was populated by peoples collectively known as the Hundred Yue, who may have been Tai-Kadai and related to the Zhuang people in modern Guangxi.
Chinese administration in the region began with the Qin Dynasty, which set up Nanhai Commandery at Panyu, near what is now part of Guangzhou. It used to be independent as Nanyue between the fall of Qin and the reign of Emperor Wu of Han. The Han Dynasty administered Guangdong, Guangxi, and northern Vietnam as Jiao Province. Under the Wu Kingdom of the Three Kingdoms, Guangdong was made its own province, the Guang Province, in 226.
As time passed, the demographics of what is now Guangdong slowly shifted to (Han) Chinese-dominance, especially during several periods of massive migration from the north during periods of political turmoil and/or nomadic incursions from the fall of the Han Dynasty onwards. As more migrants arrived, the local population was gradually assimilated to Han Chinese culture, or displaced.
As Mongols from the north engaged in their conquest of China in the 13th century, the Southern Song Dynasty retreated southwards, eventually ending up in today’s Guangdong. The Battle of Yamen (Yashan) 1279 in Guangdong marked the end of the Southern Song Dynasty (960-1279).
Since the sixteenth century, Guangdong has had extensive trade links with the rest of the world. European merchants coming northwards via the Straits of Malacca and the South China Sea, particularly the Portuguese and British, traded extensively through Guangzhou. It was the opium trade through Guangzhou that triggered the Opium Wars, opening an era of foreign incursion and intervention in China.
During the early 1920s of the Republic of China, Guangdong was the staging area for the Nationalist Party. Japanese forces occupied the province in 1938-1945. The Chinese People’s Liberation army took Guangdong province (not including Hainan Island and Leizhou Peninsula, etc) on Oct 29, 1949.
In recent years, the province has seen extremely rapid economic growth, aided in part by its close trading links with Hong Kong, which borders it.


Guangdong is a province on the south coast of the People’s Republic of China，which has an area of 76,100 sq mi (197,100 sq km).
"Guang" itself means "expanse" or "vast", and has been associating with the region from the Western Jin Dynasty onwards. "Guangdong" and neighboring Guangxi literally mean "expanse east" and "expanse west". Together, Guangdong and Guangxi are called the "Dual-Guangs”.
The modern abbreviation Yue is related to the Hundred Yue, a collective name for various peoples that lived in Guangdong and other areas in ancient times
Geography and climate
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. The highest point in the province is about 1,600 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.
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℃ (64℉) and 33℃(91℉) 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.


Economy
Guangdong is the country’s leading producer of sugarcane; rice and silk are other major crops, although the silk industry is no longer as important as it once was. Other commercial crops include hemp, tobacco, tea, tropical and subtropical fruits, and peanuts. Fishing in Guangdong accounts for about 20% of China’s catch.
Until the start of the Deng Xiaoping reforms in 1978, Guangdong was an economic backwater, although a large underground, service-based economy has always existed. The open door policy radically changed the economy of the province as it was able to take advantage of its access to the ocean, proximity to Hong Kong, and historical links to overseas Chinese. In addition, until the 1990s when the Chinese taxation system was reformed, the province benefited from the relatively low rate of taxation placed on it by the central government due to its historical status of being economically backward.
Although Shanghai is often cited as evidence of China’s success, Guangdong’s economic boom exemplifies the reality of the vast labor-intensive manufacturing powerhouse China has become, and all the rewards and shortcomings that come with it. Guangdong’s economic boom began with the early 1990s and has since spread to neighboring provinces, and also pulled their populations inward. The economy is based on manufacturing and export. Now, it has three of the six Special Economic Zones: Shenzhen, Shantou and Zhuhai. The affluence of Guangdong, however, remains very much concentrated near the Pearl River Delta.


Ethnic group
The majority of the province’s population is Han Chinese. There is a small Yao population in the north. Other smaller minority groups include Miao, Li, and Zhuang.
Guangdong is also the ancestral home of large numbers of overseas Chinese. Most of the railroad labourers in Canada, Western United States and Panama in the 19th century came from Guangdong. Emigration in recent years has slowed with economic prosperity, but this province is still a major source of immigrants to North America and elsewhere in the world.
Culture
Guangdong is a multicultural province. The central region, which is also the political and economic center, is populated predominantly by Cantonese-speakers. This region is associated with Cantonese cuisine(粤菜). Though it has the name Cantonese, Cantonese cuisine also includes Hakka cuisine (客家菜) and Teochew cuisine (潮州菜). Cantonese opera is a form of Chinese opera popular in Cantonese speaking areas.
The SARS virus is thought to have originated in Guangdong, due to the cuisine of the region, which famously includes "anything that walks, crawls or flies".
The Hakka people live in large areas of Guangdong, including Huizhou, Meizhou, Shenzhen, Heyuan, Shaoguan and other areas. Most of the Eastern part of Guangdong is populated by the Hakka people except for the Chaozhou and Hailufeng area. Hakkas culture include Hakka cuisine, Han opera, Hakka Hanyue and sixian (traditional instrumental music) and Hakka folk songs (客家山歌).
The area around the cities of Chaozhou and Shantou in eastern Guangdong, forms its own cultural sphere. Here, the people speak Teochew (潮语), and their cuisine is Chiuchow cuisine. The Teochew people, the people in Hailufeng and the people in Leizhou Peninsula all speak a language similar to Min. Teochew opera is also very famous and has a unique form.
In addition to the various local varieties of spoken Chinese, most people also speak Putonghua (Mandarin).