Guangzhou is the capital and the sub-provincial city of Guangdong Province in southern mainland China. The city was formerly known internationally as Canton City or simply Canton, after a French language transliteration of the name of the province in Cantonese.
Canton is now Guangzhou
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!
Guangdong (UK: /ɡwæŋˈdʊŋ/, US: /ɡwɑːŋ-/), formerly romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou.
About Guangzhou
The city, was formerley known as Canton, it is the leading industrial and commercial center of southern China. Guangzhou has a population of more than 12 million people in its metropolitan area.
Guangzhou, also known as Canton and alternately romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital of Guangdong province in southern China.
Proper noun
Canton. Several places in China: (dated) Guangzhou, the capital and largest city of Guangdong, China. (dated) Guangdong, a province of China. (dated) the Pearl River, a river in southern China.
The Chinese city of Guangzhou and the province of Guangdong both used to be romanized as Canton, which is where the name Cantonese came from. Although this may sound like a small area, Guangdong is actually the most populous province in China, helping make Cantonese one of the top 20 most spoken languages in the world!
1949 – PEKING: Beijing became the Chinese capital again, so Peking is back! 1958 – BEIJING: China officially adopted the pinyin romanization, which favors Beijing's northern pronunciation, and the world met the “new” city name, Beijing.
Canton ware has asymmetrical ridges and indentations around the rim of plates and platters. Canton ware patterns have an inner border of wavy lines and outside border patterns are decorated with lattice or criss cross. Some Canton ware has cobalt blue decoration while others have a washed out gray-blue color.
The Chinese still refused to back down. The British therefore advanced up the Pearl River with a reinforced military contingent under Lieutenant-General Sir Hugh Gough, capturing Canton on 27 May 1841.
The collapse of the Canton system was marked by the Opium War of 1839 to 1842, in which the British defeated the Chinese under the banner of free trade and forced them to legalize opium imports, open new ports to trade, and agree to a low fixed tariff.
The Canton System (1757–1842; Chinese: 一口通商; pinyin: Yīkǒu tōngshāng; Jyutping: jat1 hau2 tung1 soeng1, lit. "Single [port] trading relations") served as a means for Qing China to control trade with the West within its own country by focusing all trade on the southern port of Canton (now Guangzhou).
Mandarin has spread across almost all of China, as the “standardized” form of Chinese, and is spoken widely in Singapore and Taiwan. Cantonese, however, is spoken largely in Hong Kong, as well as in Macau and the Guangdong province, including the important industrial city Guangzhou.
"Cantonese" has been generally used to describe all Chinese people from Guangdong since "Cantonese" is commonly treated as a synonym with "Guangdong" and the Cantonese language is treated as the sole language of the region.
The local people, called Cantonese, speak the Cantonese language (Yueyu), which is distinctly different from the Mandarin spoken by most Chinese. However, with growing numbers of immigrants from northern and eastern China coming to live and work in the city, both Cantonese and Mandarin are now popularly used.
Britain's victory in this conflict forced the Chinese to abolish the Canton system and replace it with five treaty ports in which foreigners could live and work outside Chinese legal jurisdiction, trading with whomever they pleased.
Cantonese language, Chinese (Pinyin) Yueyu, (Wade-Giles romanization) Yüeh-yü, variety of Chinese spoken by more than 55 million people in Guangdong and southern Guangxi provinces of China, including the important cities of Canton, Hong Kong, and Macau.
Guangzhou (formerly Canton or Kwangchow) is the capital of Guangdong Province and the gateway to southern China. Over 2,000 years old, it lies at the heart of one of the world's busiest and most thriving economic regions: the Pearl River Delta and has close contact with Hong Kong and Shenzhen.
Cantonese (or Yue 粵) is one of a number of language varieties (also referred to as dialects 方言) that make up the 'Chinese' or Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Other Sinitic varieties include Mandarin, Xiang, Gan, Wu, Min, and Hakka.
Cantonese is by far the more challenging of the two languages, particularly for a beginning Chinese language learner. This is because there are more tones used in Cantonese (Cantonese uses up to nine tones, whereas Mandarin only uses four).
Despite both being tonal languages, they are not mutually intelligible. This means that while Cantonese speakers would be able to decipher Mandarin writing, they would not be able to understand the spoken language, and vice versa.
But it's always good to equip yourself with some of these greetings: Hello – Nei hou (你好) Thank you – Mm goy / Doh jeh (唔該/ 多謝)
On this page you'll find 20 synonyms, antonyms, and words related to canton, such as: billet, corner, county, division, part, and quarter.
Cantones can be thought as the more rural parts of a city or town, generally far from the actual urban population. Cantons of France: a subdivision of arrondissements and départements, grouping several communes.