Dongguan
Dongguan is a prefecture-level city in central Guangdong Province, China. An important industrial city in the Pearl River Delta, Dongguan borders the provincial capital of Guangzhou to the north, Huizhou to the northeast, Shenzhen to the south, and the Pearl River to the west. It is part of the Pearl River Delta built-up area with more than 65.57 million inhabitants as of the 2020 census spread over nine municipalities across an area of.
Dongguan's city administration is considered especially progressive in seeking foreign direct investment. Dongguan ranks behind only Shenzhen, Shanghai and Suzhou in exports among Chinese cities, with $65.54 billion in shipments. It is also home to one of the world's largest shopping malls, the New South China Mall, which is seeing increased activity. Although the city is geographically and thus culturally Cantonese in the Weitou form and as well as culturally Hakka in the prefectures of Fenggang and Qingxi, the majority of the modern-day population speaks Mandarin due to the large influx of economic migrants from other parts of China. The city is home to several universities, including Guangdong University of Science and Technology, Guangdong Medical University and Dongguan University of Technology.
Economy
In the Pearl River Delta region, Dongguan was the first urban area where joint production was implemented between village collectives, local Chinese Communist Party cadres, and foreign investors. In the 1990s, that type of enterprise accounted for around 20 percent of all foreign direct investments, and approximately 50 percent of exports by the People's Republic of China.Today Dongguan is a major manufacturing hub, although it suffered significant loss of economic activity from the impact of the 2008 financial crisis. The largest industrial sector is manufacturing of electronics and communications equipment; international companies with facilities in Dongguan include DuPont, Samsung Electronics, Nokia, Coca-Cola, Nestlé and Maersk. It is also a strong hub of toy making, with 4,000 toy-production enterprises, and near to 1,500 related factories.
The Dongguan Science and Technology Museum opened in December 2005 and is the high tech commerce park in the Songshan Lake district, which opened in 2003. The museum is a partnership with the Global IT Academy of the Brea Olinda Unified School District in Southern California, demonstrating the city's emphasis on attracting technology business. The city announced in 2005 a planned investment of US$500 million over five years for technology infrastructure improvements. The city administration is considered especially progressive in seeking foreign direct investment. Among the investors were Brazilian shoe manufacturers. Brazil excelled in manufacturing cheap footwear in the 1970s and 80s. The Brazilian community in Dongguan numbered 4,000 people in 2013.
While the city is the fourth largest export region in China, behind Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Suzhou, Dongguan has yet to gain the kind of name recognition outside of China as has been realized by Shenzhen. That may be because the city has focused on infrastructure investment rather than the direct targeting of major corporations with financial incentives for economic development. Nevertheless, Dongguan has been identified by high-level representatives of the National Development and Reform Commission of the central government as one of the most significant growth regions for technology. As part of that plan, the Dongguan local government announced its intention to create and support a 100-billion-yuan photovoltaic manufacturing industry by 2015.
To cope with the impact of the 2008 financial crisis, Dongguan city looked to industrial restructuring, focusing on four pillar platforms, namely governmental services, supporting measures, technology upgrade, and market expansion. The city government claimed that the process has enhanced its capability for independent innovation and the quantity of patent applications.
Dongguan was known as China's "Sin City", where prostitution thrived, but authorities have attempted to eradicate that aspect of the city. On 9 February 2014, China Central Television aired a special on the sex industry in Dongguan. On the same day, Guangdong Provincial Police raided and closed all saunas, bars, foot massage premises, karaoke bars, and other businesses associated with the sex industry. The negative economic impact of the crackdown was reported to be 50 billion yuan, or just over $8 billion US dollars. The campaign affected the livelihoods of taxi drivers and restaurants which, while not directly involved in the sex industry, benefited from the increase in clientele.
The city ranked 13th by Forbes China in its list of the most innovative mainland cities, as well as 18th in Foreign Policy's listing of the most dynamic cities in the world.
History
The earliest traces of human 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, a town that now belongs to Dongguan. 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 guerrilla resistance against the occupation that came with the Second Sino-Japanese War.
Being a district of the Huiyang prefecture before, as its economy overshadowed the prefectural capital of Huizhou itself, Dongguan earned city status in 1985, and was upgraded to prefecture city status three years later. During this period the city changed its focus from an agricultural town into a manufacturing hub, with an average annual growth of up to 18 percent.
Geography
Geographically, the city is mostly hilly to the east and flat in the west, with of shoreline. The urban center of Dongguan is from that of Guangzhou to its north, from Shenzhen to its south, from Hong Kong and from Macau by waterway. It is positioned in the middle of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen economic corridor, a hub for both land and sea transport.Of Dongguan's total area, 27 percent is water, 25 percent forest land, and 13 percent arable land, while 35 percent of its land area has been fully developed.
Image:Dongguan Guanyinshan.jpg|thumb|center|720px|Guan Yin Shan in Dongguan
Image:东莞市, 中国 Jul 18, 2019 15-41-45.jpeg|thumb|center|720px|Skyscrapers in Dongguan
Climate
Dongguan has a dry-winter humid subtropical climate, with abundant rainfall over the year. It lies just south of the Tropic of Cancer. The average temperature is throughout the year with average rainfall of. With monthly percent possible sunshine ranging from 23 percent in March to 57 percent in October, the city receives 1892 hours of bright sunshine annually.Demographics
Dongguan had an estimated 6,949,800 inhabitants at the end of 2008, among whom 1,748,700 were local residents and 5,201,100 permanent migrants from other parts of the country. At the 2010 Census the population had expanded to 8,220,237. The number reached 10.5 million by 2020.According to the Seventh National Census in 2020, the city's permanent population was 10,466,625. Compared with 8,220,237 people in the Sixth National Census in 2010, the city's permanent population increased by 2,246,388 people, an increase of 27.33%, with an average annual growth rate of 2.45%.
In addition, Dongguan is the hometown for many overseas Chinese.
Administration
Dongguan is a prefecture-level city of the Guangdong province. An uncommon administrative feature is that it has no county-level division, but the municipal government does group the 32 township-level divisions into six district areas. The city government directly administers four Subdistricts and 28 towns:Transport
Air
Dongguan is served by Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport, but primarily by Hong Kong International Airport; ticketed passengers to HKIA can take ferries from the Humen Ferry Terminal in Humen to the HKIA Skypier. There are also coach bus services connecting Dongguan with HKIA.Road
Many foreign travellers to Dongguan fly into Hong Kong, which gives visas on arrival to citizens of over 170 countries. One can travel from Hong Kong to Dongguan by bus, ferry, or train. Passengers travelling overland must disembark from their transport at the Hong Kong/China border to go through customs and immigration, except for those travelling on the Mass Transit Railway intercity services from Hung Hom station to Dongguan, Guangzhou and beyond.People can also choose to drive between Hong Kong and Dongguan. With the permitted business license plate and driver license, people can drive through the customs located at Shenzhen so that to get to Hong Kong. The drive normally takes about three hours. In 2018, G4 Expressway was opened, and Dongguan is one of the cities that G4 Expressway approaches. This benefits people from Dongguan to travel to those cities on G4 Expressway.
The Humen Pearl River Bridge is a suspension bridge over the Pearl River. Completed in 1997, it has a main span of. The second Humen Pearl River Bridge opened in 2019.
Rail
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 where there are direct train services to Guangzhou East railway station in Guangzhou; and Hung Hom railway station in Hong Kong. High-speed rail services are also available at Humen railway station.Among the four metro lines planned for the Dongguan Rail Transit, Line 2 was scheduled to open for operations in early 2015. This was delayed and opened in May 2016. Line 2 will link towns in Western Dongguan, thereby promoting the connection of the entire downtown area with Houjie, Humen and Chang'an. It will also support Dongguan's regional transportation with other cities such as Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong by joining with the rail transit junctions of the Pearl River Delta.