Shenzhen

Shenzhen

This page contains background information about Shenzhen, and the region of China called the Pearl River Delta.

Pearl River Delta

The Pearl River Delta (PRD) is located in the province Guangdong in Southern-China and has been formed by sediment deposits from the Pearl River. The area is about 8600 8600km² large, roughly equal in size to a quarter of the Netherlands. The delta region has a rectangular shape with the cities Guangzhou, Macau and Hong Kong on the corners. The three most important cities of Mainland China are Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Zhuhai.

Guangzhou en Zhuhai

Guangzhou is the capital of the province Guangdong. It's the largest coastal city in Southern China with an area of about 7300 km². Guangzhou governs 10 districts and two cities. The total population in 2001 was about 7.1 million people and the GDP was ¥38.568. This made Guangzhou the 8th richest city of China

Zhuhai lies on the western edge of the Pearl River Delta and borders in the south to Macau. The city covers an area of 7649 km² and has a population of about 1.25 million. The GDP per capita was ¥66.551 in 2001, making it the third richest city in China.

Shenzhen

Shenzhen (Chinees: 深圳) is a big city in South China in the south of the province Guangdong and the south of the city borders the north border of Hong Kong. The city has about 12 million inhabitants and about 8 million of them are official residents (hold a 'hukou'). Shenzhen covers an area of 2020 km² and is known for its many parks and in 2001 won an international award as 'garden city'.

History

Shenzhen started out as a small fishing village, but since the designation as 'Speciale Economische Zone (SEZ)' by Deng Xiaopin in 1980, Shenzhen has expanded and grown to the current modern world city.

Geography and layout of the city

Shenzhen streches from West to East and can be divided into several districts. In the west is Bao'an district, next to the east Nanshan. Part of Nanshan is called Shekou and many foreigners traditionally live there. More central you will get Futian (where I currently live) and Luohu district. Even further eastwards we get the small district Yantian and the big district Longgang. The three districts Nanshan, Futian and Luohu form the heart of Shenzhen but the government of Shenzhen is putting greater emphasis on the development of other districts such as Bao'an.

Economy

Shenzhen had a labour force of about 3.3 million people in 2001, although this number is probably outdated and I would not be surprised if it was two times as much now. The GDP per capita wildly varies in reported by different sources. According to the city it was US$ 5604,60 in 2002. According to some other research it was ¥136.071 in 2001, making it the richest city of China. A famous Chinese saying is is:

"You think you're brave until you go to Manchuria, you think you're well-read until you reach Beijing, and you think you're rich until you set foot in Shenzhen."

Shenzhen has as only one of three Chinese cities (Shanghai and Hong Kong are the other two) their own stock exchange called the Shenzhen Stock Exchange . This exchange was founded in 1990. Shenzhes harbor rivals that of Shanghai and Hong Kong measured by export of Chinese goods. In 2005 Shenzhen was the fourth busiest harbor in the world measured by the number of containers and was growing much faster than Hong Kong.

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