Travel Guide to Guangdong Province: China’s Southern Gateway and Transport Hub, a Province Boasting Multiple National “Firsts”

Guangdong Province, abbreviated as “Yue”, is a provincial-level administrative region of the People’s Republic of China with Guangzhou as its capital. Located in the southernmost part of mainland China, it borders Fujian to the east, faces the South China Sea to the south, connects Guangxi to the west, and adjoins Jiangxi and Hunan to the north. As of December 2023, it governs 21 prefecture-level cities and 122 county-level administrative regions in total. Languages in Guangdong are diverse and complex, dominated by three major Chinese dialects: Cantonese, Hakka and Minnan.
Featuring a subtropical monsoon climate within the East Asian monsoon zone, Guangdong sees climatic variations from the north to the south, covering the middle subtropical, southern subtropical and tropical zones respectively. Its landforms include mountains, hills, terraces and plains, with the terrain generally higher in the north and lower in the south. The sea area of Guangdong is 2.3 times its land area. The province enjoys abundant rainfall, a well-developed water system and rich water resources. Major river systems consist of the West River, East River, North River and Delta waterways of the Pearl River, as well as the Han River system. Other independent rivers flowing directly into the sea include the Rong River, Lian River, Luo River and Huanggang River in eastern Guangdong, plus the Moyang River, Jian River, Jiu Zhou River and Nan Duo River in western Guangdong. There are more than 150 lakes across the province.
Guangdong possesses the longest continental coastline in China. Its coastal zones are rich in high-quality resources, with tidal flat areas exceeding 2,000 square kilometers and over 510 large and small bays. The province has 1,963 islands, ranking second among all coastal provincial-level regions in China. It is home to more than 170 premium coastal beaches and 106 square kilometers of mangrove forests.
Human activities inhabited Guangdong as early as the early Paleolithic Age. In the 33rd year of the reign of Emperor Qin Shi Huang (214 BC), three commanderies — Nanhai, Xiang and Guilin — were established, marking the first administrative division in Guangdong’s history. The official name “Guangdong Province” was adopted in the early Qing Dynasty. The county-administered-by-city system was fully implemented in 1988, and the provincial boundary of Guangdong has remained unchanged since the end of 2022.
Serving as a pivotal shipping hub of the South China Sea, Guangdong is a major province in foreign trade and investment, private economy, manufacturing, and agricultural import and export across China, topping the nation in regional innovation capacity. Known as China’s southern gateway, Guangdong was the only port open to foreign trade during the Qing Dynasty. After the reform and opening-up initiative was launched, it became a window introducing Western economic development experience and resources to China. By 2025, Guangdong’s economic aggregate had secured the first place nationwide for 37 consecutive years, accounting for over one-tenth of China’s total economy and holding a prominent position in the national economic landscape. Multiple key indicators lead the country, including the added value of the service industry, total import and export volume, market entities, and comprehensive regional innovation capacity.
Guangdong’s ten strategic pillar industries cover a new generation of electronic information, green petrochemicals, smart home appliances, automobiles, advanced materials, modern light industry and textiles, software and information services, ultra-high-definition video display, biomedicine and health, as well as modern agriculture and food. In 2023, three backbone sectors — computer, communication and other electronic equipment manufacturing, electrical machinery and equipment manufacturing, and automobile manufacturing — acted as stabilizers for Guangdong’s manufacturing industry. Meanwhile, the province has expanded and upgraded 8 trillion-yuan industrial clusters, fostering new industrial clusters valued at trillion-yuan and 500-billion-yuan levels focusing on new energy, ultra-high-definition video display, biomedicine and high-end equipment manufacturing. The 20 strategic industrial clusters of Guangdong account for 40% of the provincial GDP, forming an industrial matrix of 8 trillion-yuan clusters, 3 clusters of 500 billion yuan, 7 clusters of 100 billion yuan and 2 clusters of 10 billion yuan. Guangdong’s financial industry maintains a leading position nationwide. In 2025, Guangdong’s goods import and export volume accounted for 20.9% of China’s total foreign trade, ranking first among all provinces and cities for 40 straight years.
Centering on three core airports — Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport and Pearl River Delta Hub (New Guangzhou) Airport, Guangdong forms a global international aviation hub network. Among them, Baiyun Airport is a key international aviation hub for the Belt and Road Initiative and the Air Silk Road, as well as the core hub airport of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. It has established business cooperation with nearly 80 Chinese and foreign airlines, operating routes connecting more than 230 domestic and global destinations (including over 90 international and regional air routes), covering five continents worldwide.
The core area of the Pearl River Delta, a national priority optimized development zone, is located in south-central Guangdong. Boasting convenient transportation networks and modern port clusters, it serves as a vital sea outlet for central and southern China as well as southwest China. Centered on Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Zhuhai, it takes Guangzhou-Foshan urban integration as a model, advancing the integrated development of three major city groups: Guangzhou-Foshan-Zhaoqing, Shenzhen-Dongguan-Huizhou, and Zhuhai-Zhongshan-Jiangmen. Through economic integration between Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, the core Pearl River Delta has built a world-renowned base for advanced manufacturing and modern service industries. It acts as the gateway for southern China’s opening up to the outside world, a leader driving development in South China, central-south China and southwest China, and one of China’s three major regions featuring dense population aggregation, strongest innovation capability and comprehensive strength.
Guangdong hosts the largest number of migrant populations across China. It has nurtured distinctive Lingnan culture, characterized by openness, inclusiveness and a pioneering spirit.
On the 2023 National Science and Technology Award list, 14 projects from Guangdong won awards in natural science, technological invention and scientific and technological progress. As a pacesetter, pioneer and experimental zone for China’s reform and opening-up, Guangdong occupies an extremely important strategic position and undertakes vital missions in the overall cause of China’s socialist modernization drive.
By 2023, Guangdong had established 1,361 nature reserves at and above the county level, ranking first nationwide. It is also the province with the earliest-established and largest number of nature reserves in China. There are 6 internationally important wetlands and 1 nationally important wetland within its territory. Representative national nature reserves include Guangdong Nanling National Nature Reserve, Chebaling National Nature Reserve, Danxiashan National Nature Reserve, Yingde Shimentai National Nature Reserve, and Qujiang Luokang Crocodile Lizard National Nature Reserve.
As of 2023, Guangdong boasts 1 World Cultural Heritage site, 131 Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level, 755 at the provincial level, and 5,026 at the municipal and county levels. By November 2023, the province had 8 national historical and cultural cities, 15 provincial historical and cultural cities, 24 famous historical and cultural towns, 67 famous historical and cultural villages, 110 historical and cultural blocks and 4,423 historical buildings.
Bordering the South China Sea, Guangdong has China’s longest continental coastline. Coastal cities include Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou, Huizhou, Shanwei, Yangjiang, Zhanjiang and Maoming. Beyond coastal landscapes, Guangdong features unique landforms such as granite landforms, Danxia landforms and karst landforms. It also has well-developed man-made cultural landscapes, including 6 theme parks.
By 2023, Guangdong was home to 15 AAAAA-level tourist attractions such as Guangzhou Chimelong Tourist Resort and Guangzhou Baiyun Mountain Scenic Area, along with 277 AAAA-level scenic spots, 369 AAA-level spots and 10 AA-level spots. In addition, there are numerous red cultural tourism museums and memorial halls. Renowned mountains cover Luofu Mountain known as “the First Mountain of Lingnan”, Danxiashan — the naming origin of global Danxia landform World Natural Heritage, and Dinghu Mountain in Zhaoqing, an oasis on the Tropic of Cancer. The province also features 1,963 islands of varying sizes, riverside scenery along the East River, West River and North River, as well as ancient Lingnan water town villages.