Few cities can claim such an impressive history as Guangzhou. Originally known as Panyu, it was once the heart of the Han Dynasty. More recently, it was the principal port of 16th century European traders.
The term "Canton" is often used as an alternative name for the Chinese city of Guangzhou. Guangzhou is the capital of Guangdong province in southern China and is historically known as Canton in Western languages due to the transliteration of its name.
No one is quite sure how the name Cantão or Canton actually came about, but it is believed to be a European phonetic mispronunciation of Guangzhou or Guangdong. The name Guangzhou was officially adopted by the city in 1918. So the city was never officially named Canton at all!
Guangzhou has been the official city name since 1918 and while “Canton” wasn't formally adopted, the word “Cantonese” lives on. The small Khmer fishing village of Prey Nokor (“forest city”) or Preah Reach Nokor (“royal city”) became Gia Dinh when it was seized by the Vietnamese.
Many locals in Guangzhou are "billingual" -- Mandarin and Cantonese. Mandarin, being the official language of the whole country, is the language for education so almost everyone speaks it. Cantonese is also very commonly used, especially in local shops, restaurants, markets etc.
China developed and adopted the Pinyin romanisation system in February 1958 in place of previous systems such as the postal romanization and Wade–Giles. Many Chinese geographical entities (and associated entities named after geographical names) thus had their English names changed.
Guangdong (UK: /ɡwæŋˈdʊŋ/, US: /ɡwɑːŋ-/), formerly romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province located in South China, on the north shore of the South China Sea. The provincial capital is Guangzhou.
Younger people were more concerned about the decline than middle-aged people. The paper found that though 90% of people in Guangzhou were bilingual, speaking Mandarin and Cantonese — the former overwhelmingly dominant as the medium of instruction in schools.
Now there isn't a city called 'guanzhou'. '泉州(quán zhou)' is a city in Fu'jian province, while '广州(guǎng zhou)' is the capital city of Guang'dong province.
Canton, the postal romanisation name for Guangzhou, originated from Cantão, the name coined by the Portuguese, who had conflated the city of Guangzhou with Guangdong, the province in which it is located.
Chinese call the country Zhongguo or Zhonghua, which means “the middle kingdom”, or “the brilliant (civilization) at the center of all”. “China” is believed to come from the Persian word of Cin, which was likely derived from the name of the first Chinese empire of Qin (pronouced as Chin).
Shawan Ancient Town is located in the center of Panyu district in southern Guangzhou. Originally built during the Song Dynasty (960-1279), it has a history of over 800 years.
The city Guangzhou is the capital of the province and frequently referred as 廣東省城 ("the Canton Province Capital City") or simply 省城 ("the Province City") by Cantonese people. The city naturally represents the province and thus the name of the province was used as the city's name.
Guangzhou has the nickname 'Flower City', thanks to its year-round warm weather which other parts of the country is denied of. The locals' enthusiasm for flowers as decorations at home reaches its prime when the annual Flower Fairs is held just before the Chinese New Year.
One of the main reasons Cantonese is of such interest is perhaps because it is significantly older than Mandarin. It was first recorded after the fall of the Han dynasty, around 220AD, over 2000 years ago. In contrast, Mandarin only came into being around 100 years ago.
Cantonese is spoken in the southern Chinese provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi and also in Hong Kong and Macau. Cantonese is also widely spoken by overseas Chinese all around the world with some of the largest communities in Southeast Asia.
To say "hello" in Cantonese, you would say néih hóu (nay hoh). This is similar to the Mandarin greeting nǐ hǎo (nee how), which you may be familiar with.
Originally Hong Kong was part of Guangdong province. After the British took control it became a separate entity. Though Hong Kong returned to China in 1997, it did not rejoin Guangdong. Instead Hong Kong, like Macau later did as well, became a Special Administrative Region (SAR).
Guangzhou has Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism and Christianity, with Taoism as the only Chinese local religion. Buddhism spread in Guangzhou in 255, Taoism in 306, Islam in the early Tang Dynasty, Catholicism in the late Ming Dynasty, and Christianity in the early Qing Dynasty.
Lying at the center of Beijing, the Forbidden City, called Gu Gong, in Chinese, was the imperial palace during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Now known as the Palace Museum, it is to the north of Tian'anmen Square. Rectangular in shape, it is the world's largest palace complex and covers 74 hectares.
The English spelling Beijing is based on the government's official romanization (adopted in the 1980s) of the two characters as they are pronounced in Standard Mandarin. An older English spelling, Peking, was used by Jesuit missionary Martino Martini in a popular atlas published in Amsterdam in 1655.
Its former or poetic name, the Chunshen River, gave Shanghai its nickname of "Shēn". Fishermen living in the Shanghai area then created a fish tool called the hù, which lent its name to the outlet of Suzhou Creek north of the Old City and became a common nickname and abbreviation for the city.
