Dongguan

About Dongguan

Dongguan is best known as one of the workshops of the world, a Pearl River Delta city of factories, tech campuses and fast-growing towns between Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Look past the industry, though, and you find the place where the First Opium War began, a Qing-dynasty garden of rare refinement and lychee orchards on the edge of town.

In 1839 the imperial commissioner Lin Zexu destroyed more than a thousand tonnes of seized opium on the beach at Humen, a defiant act that led to war with Britain. The forts guarding the Humen strait saw fighting soon after, and today they form some of the most important historic sites in southern China. Later, from the 1980s, Dongguan grew into a manufacturing powerhouse with a population of over ten million.

A visit can combine the Opium War Museum and the forts of Humen with Keyuan Garden, the old village of Nanshe and walks or bike rides around Songshan Lake. Humen's garment markets draw bargain hunters, and the long span of the Humen Bridge links the city to Guangzhou across the Pearl River.