Meaning of the name
"Wide East". This is a contraction of the old name Guangnan Donglu, "Wide South, East Route", meaning that it is the eastern half of the entire territory beyond the Southern Mountains. Guangdong is sometimes called Guang or Yue for short.

Geographical location:
Guangdong Province is located at the southernmost end of China's mainland. It covers a land area of 178,000 square kilometers and its islands total 1,600 square kilometers. With the South China Sea lying to the south of the province, Guangdong has a coastal line of 3,368 km and many islands. The province is situated in the low latitudes, and the Tropic of Cancer runs across the central part of the province. The 2,122 km-long Pearl River is the third longest river in China. The Pearl River Delta is a well-known fertile land of fish and rice.

Capital: Guangzhou

Major Cities: Guangzhou, Shantou, Foshan, Zhanjiang, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shaoguan

Neighboring Areas: Hunan, Jiangxi, Fujian, and Hainan provinces; Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Hong Kong and Macao

Attractions in Guangdong

Population:
In 2001, the total population of the province was 77.8341 million, ranking third in China.

Culture
Guangdong people are noted among Chinese for their distinctive cultural traits, especially language (see above), but also theatrical traditions such as opera and hand puppetry.

Institutions based on family lineage are an important part of the culture in rural areas of Guangdong, where entire villages are often composed of members of only one or two families.

Food
Although considered the fourth or fifth most important school of cooking by Chinese, Cantonese food is the most well-known and popular type of Chinese cuisine in the West. An extremely wide range of ingredients is used in Cantonese cuisine, virtually every type of animal, fish and plant found in the province. Cantonese chefs strive for clarity of flavours and artistic presentation, and pay particular attention to the natural characteristics of the ingredients (see links to recipes below).

Folklore
Given Guangdong natives' reputations for hard work and exotic culinary tastes, people in the rest of China joke that they excel in every profession they try, except zookeeper.

Ethnicity:
There are 53 ethnical groups living in the province, and the population of the minority ethnical groups accounts for 0.7 percent of the province¡¯s total. The main minority ethnical groups are Zhuang, Yao, She, Hui and Manchu.

Literacy:
According to statistics of 2001, there are 62 higher learning institutions, with 139,000 freshmen and a total enrollment of 381,900 students, increasing 15.12 percent and 27.53 percent respectively as compared with that of the preceding year. There are 40 colleges for continuous education, with 97,100 students newly enrolled in the year and a total enrollment of 233,000 students, increasing 13.37 percent and 15.7 percent respectively on the preceding year. There are 26 schools and academies for graduate programs, enrolling 7,400 graduate students in the year, with a total enrollment of 17,900 students, increasing 30.29 percent, and 37.59 percent respectively on the preceding year. The province¡¯s high schools enrolled 609,600 students in the year, with a total enrollment of 1.6299 million students, an increase of 9.61 percent and 6.84 percent respectively on the preceding year. The schooling rate of children of primary school age in the province is 99.62 percent; the total enrollment of primary schools is 9.5298 million. Of the primary school graduates, 96.35 percent enter junior high schools.

Elevation extremes:
The topography of the province is high in the north and low in the south, interlaced with mountains, plains and hilly land. The province covers a land area of 180,000 square kilometers, of which 3.12 million hectares are farmlands, 10.25 million hectares are used for afforestation, and 570,000 hectares are grassy wasteland. Mountainous land makes up 31.7 percent of the total area of the province; hilly land, 28.5 percent of the total; terraced land, 16.1 percent; and plains, 23.7 percent.

Mountains: from west to east arranged in an arc are Mt. Yunwushan, Mt. Nanlingshan, Mt. Jiulianshan, and Mt. Lianhuashan

Rivers: Pearl River, which is the confluence of the Xijiang, Beijiang and Dongjiang Rivers from the west, north, and east, respectively

Climate:
The province sits in the subtropical zone, and most areas have subtropical monsoon climate with adequate rainfall, featuring a long summer and a warm winter. The annual precipitation averages 1,336 mm and the annual evaporation averages 1,100 mm, making Guangdong an area of moisture. Its yearly average temperature is 22 ¡ãC, with 1,828 hours of sunshine in a year. The province is covered in verdant vegetation with full vigor all year round.

Average Temperature: 8C to 17C in January, 27C to 29C in July

Annual Average Rainfall: over 1,500 mm; high precipitation on the southern side of mountains; 40 percent of the rain falls during the summer

Natural resources:
Guangdong boasts rich mineral resources. So far, a total of 116 varieties of ores have been discovered, 89 of which having been surveyed. The deposit of coal, iron ore and pyrite is 547 million tons, 553 million tons and 445 million tons respectively. The deposits of 34 minerals are among the leading five in the country. And the deposits of peat, vein quartz, kaolin clay, trachyte, germanium and tellurium all rank first in the country.

Forest covers up 57 percent of the province¡¯s territory, with a living timber reserve of 300 million cubic meters. The province has a broad sea area and a network of intercrossed waterways with many reservoirs and fishing ponds, all offering abundant aquatic products. Its marine breeding area covers 780,000 hectares and freshwater breeding area, 430,000 hectares. Rice, vegetables and fruits are the main crops farmed in Guangdong. Zhanjiang is the largest sisal hemp base while Maoming is the largest fruits producing base. Tree species growing in the province include pine, Chinese catalpa, fir, and eucalyptus. Among the 200 varieties of fruits grown in Guangdong are pineapples, bananas, litchi, and longan and orange, which are honored as ¡°the favorites from the area south of the Nanling Ridge.¡±

The province has a reserved hydropower capacity of 10.73 million KW in theory, with a practical capacity of 6.66 million KW, of which 60 percent has been tapped.

Tourist resources:
There are 40 forest parks and 30 nature reserves at provincial level in Guangdong. Following Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Zhaoqing, more Guangdong cities have been listed as Excellent Tourist Cities. These include Zhongshan, Foshan, Jiangmen, Shantou, Huizhou and Hainan. Zhongshan and Hainan, in particular, rank the first and second in this group of cities at the prefecture level and county level that have been given such an honor. The construction of the triangle tourism area of Guangdong, Hon Kong and Macao has taken off, and the State Council has approved the practice of ¡°a convenient endorsement of visa in 144 hours¡± in 10 cities in the Zhujiang River Delta and Shantou City. Eleven scenic spots and areas in the province have been appraised as 4-A, the top quality, tourist areas, including Baiyun Hill and Xiangjiang Wildlife Park in Guangzhou; the Overseas Chinese Town and the Guanlan Golf Course in Shenzhen; the Yuanming New Park in Zhuhai; the native residence of Dr. Sun Yat-sen in Chongshan; the Star Lake in Zhaoqing; Mount Sijiao in Foshan; Mount Danxia in Shaoguan; Qingxin Hot Springs in Qingyuan; and the Dajiao Bay of Hailing Island in Yangjiang.

Environment and current issues:
In 2001, 97.8 percent of the newly built projects had completed the three things at the same time as required, which means that environmental protective facilities must be designed, built up and put into operation at the same time along with the design, construction and putting into operation of the main structure. Of all the new projects, 99.8 percent were checked under the environmental protection system. In the province, 45,700 enterprises were listed for their pollution to the environment, and 607 of them have finished pollution-treating projects within the required period, with a cost of 217 million yuan. Of the 115 projects of the Guangdong Provincial Clear-Water Program, 105 have been launched, with a total cost of 7 billion yuan. Projects for protecting the water quality of the rivers of Dongjiang, Tanjiang, Hanjiang, Jiuzhou, Xijiang, Jianjiang, Yongjiang, Moyang and Lianjiang will be started soon upon the approval of the provincial government. The project of transregional comprehensive administering of polluted water of Guangdong and Foshan has started. And the project of administering the polluted water of Dongguan Canal is underway. About 70 percent of the projects included in the Guangdong Blue Sky Program have been carried out, 45.6 percent of which will be completed by the end of 2002. Among the province¡¯s 505 major sulfur dioxide pollutant sources, 482 have been put under control to meet the standards for exhaust. The province has built 175 nature reserves, which cover a total area of 2.705 million hectares, accounting for 3.83 percent of the total territory under the provincial jurisdiction. Following the cities of Zhuhai, Zhanjiang, Zengcheng, Lianjiang, Longmen and Zhongshan, five more counties and cities, including Nan¡¯ao, Shixing, Lianping, Xuwen, and Jiexi were listed in 2001 as national ecological experimental samples. The range of quantitative investigations of city comprehensive environmental protection has been expanded to 52 cities and counties. Following Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Zhongshan and Shantou, Huizhou was also granted the title of National Model City of Environmental Protection. Guangzhou City has been honored as the international garden city and won a special award of urban construction granted by the Ministry of City Constructions, the environmental exemplary prize of Chinese human settlements; Shenzhen City was awarded a prize of Chinese human settlements. The Zhaoqing Xinghu Scenic Area was approved as an ISO140 state model.

Transportation
Railways:
There are four railway companies in the province. Major railways running through the province include the lines of Beijing--Kowlong, Beijing¡ªGuangzhou, Guangzhou¡ªMeixian¡ªShantou and Sanshui¡ªMaoming.

Highways:
A total of 84,563 km of highways is in service, including 70,413 km of graded highways.

Waterways:
There are more than 100 ports, including the Huangpu Port, Zhanjiang Port, Shekou Port and Chiwan Port.

Airports:
The province has eight civil aerodromes. Its Baiyun Airport is one of the three major international airports in China that have the largest passenger handling capacities. There are 23 domestic flight routes and five international flight routes in service.

Telecommunications
Telephones:
The number of fixed telephone users is 17.06 million, 18.9 percent more than that in the preceding year. The number of mobile telephone users is 24.16 million, 80.7 percent more than that in the preceding year.

Radio and TV stations:
The province has 46 radio and TV broadcast stations, with 75 additional stations at county level. There are 125 transmitting and relay stations of 1KW or above for medium-wave, frequency-modulated and TV programs. A total of 218 units are involved in the production and operation of TV programs. In the province, broadcast and TV programs can be received in every administrative village. The population coverage of broadcast and TV is 96 percent and 96.4 percent respectively. Cable broadcast and TV is developing rapidly in the province and the cable digital TV platform is now available. The province¡¯s main cable broadcast and TV transmission networks are all linked through optical fiber cables. The number of cable broadcast and TV users is more than 7 million, accounting for 10 percent of the nation¡¯s total.