Geography of Guangdong
Him Mark Lai
Modern Guangdong 廣東 is a province with 68,708 square miles in land area (slightly
less than half of California's area of 158,693 square miles) and permanent population of
86,420,000 (slightly more than 2-1/2 times California's population of 33,872,000) in the year
2000. However, according to a report by the Provincial Governor the population figure jumps to
110,000,000 if temporary workers from other regions in China who lived and worked in
Guangdong for six months or more were included, thus making Guangdong the most populous
province in China. This does not include the 11 million migrants 安排批 who worked in
Guangdong for less than half a year.
It is the most southerly coastal province in China. The area is separated from the Chang
(Yangzi) River basin by the Wuling mountains 五嶺, a part of the Nanling mountain range 南嶺
山脈; hence, it is often referred to as Lingnan 嶺南 (Cantonese Lingnam; south of the mountain
range). The climate is subtropical with hot humid summers and mild winters. The annual rainfall
exceeds 50 inches almost everywhere and in certain places it is double that figure. The coastal
regions are frequently swept by typhoons. The temperature rarely drops below freezing and
there is little snow and frost. Three crops of rice can be harvested per year in most of the
province.
The major river system in Guangdong is that of the Zhu Jiang 珠 江 (Pearl River). The
main tributary is the Xi Jiang 西江 (West River), which rises in the Tibetan plateau and flows
eastward 1,364 miles to the South China Sea. Another major tributary is the 291 miles long Bei
Jiang 北江 (North River), which rises in the northern part of the province and flows south toward
the West River. The two rivers, however, do not merge but is interconnected by a 1-1/2 mile
long channel near the Pearl River Delta. The Pearl itself is a short river about fifty miles in length
fed principally by the North River and the West River through a complex network of
interconnecting channels. Another major tributary of the Pearl River system is the 325 miles
long Dong Jiang 東江 (East River), which discharges into the Pearl from the east a few miles
before the Pearl discharges through Humen 虎門 (Tiger Gate, Boca Tigris) to its estuary. The
three are the principal rivers forming a complex delta known as the Pearl River Delta. This delta
is one of the most densely populated regions in modern Guangdong.
Another major river is the 202 miles long Han River 韓 江 located in northeast
Guangdong. Its delta is another densely populated region. On the Han River delta is the
ancient city of Chaozhou (Spelled as Teochiu in Southeast Asia; 潮州) and the port of Shantou
汕頭 (Chinese Post Office spelling Swatow).
Guangdong has the distinction of having three out of the seven major Chinese dialect
groups within its borders: the Yue 粵 (Cantonese Yuet) or Cantonese; the Minnan 閩南 or
Southern Fujianese; and Ke 客 or Hakka 客家. The reasons for the formation of this complex
linguistic map can be found in the historical development of Guangdong over the past two
thousand years.
About five per cent of the Han Chinese speakers belong to the Yue dialect group, which
is the dominant dialect in Guangdong. Speakers are found in the Pearl River Delta and in the
West River basin all the way to Nanning 南寧 in neighboring Guangxi, as well as in the southern
part of Guangdong. The 1982 census counted approximately 28 million speakers in
Guangdong, which at the time also included Hainan Island. Excluding Hainan, which became a
separate province in 1988, Yue comprised some 53 percent of the Guangdong population.
There were also twelve million in Guangxi, which figure represented about a third of the latter
province's populace. Looking from another angle 70 percent of the Cantonese speakers are in
Guangdong and 30 percent in Guangxi.
Yue is one of the most widespread of all Chinese dialects, for an estimated ten million
Chinese of Cantonese ancestry are found abroad. This includes many in the Americas and
Hawaii who trace their origins to Sam Yup 三邑, Sze Yap 四邑, and Zhongshan 中 山.
There are five subgroups of the Yue dialect in Guangdong. The most important with the
most numerous speakers is the Guangfu 廣府 sub-group that includes about 43 percent of Yue
speakers in Guangdong, covering inhabitants in the lower West River Valley as well as the
Pearl River Delta, and including the important port cities of Guangzhou 廣州 (Canton), Hong
Kong 香港, and Macao 澳門. The pronunciation of Guangzhou is considered the standard;
hence its is called Guangzhou speech 廣州話, but sometimes it is called Guangfu speech 廣府
話, or Baihua 白話 (Baak'waa). It is also referred to as Guangdong speech 廣東話.
A Yue dialect subgroup that is often encountered in North American Chinese
communities is that of the Siyi (Sze Yap). It is spoken by about 12 percent of Yue speakers in
Guangdong who live in the Tan River basin southwest of the Pearl River Delta. However before
World War II, about 70 to 80 percent of the Chinese in the North American continent were
probably speakers of this sub-dialect. Since World War II, the percentage of Siyi speakers had
steadily been diluted by the arrivals of immigrants from Hong Kong and China who spoke the
prevalent standard city dialect. Another two Yue dialect sub-groups that are now heard more
often in North America with the recent influx of refugees from Vietnam are the Gaoyang 高陽
sub-group from southwestern Guangdong and Qinlian 欽廉 sub-group from southeastern
Guangxi.
Cantonese differs greatly from Mandarin, the official language based on the
pronunciation in Beijing. According to recent research the correlation of initials and rhymes and
of tones between Cantonese and Mandarin is only 0.4380 and 0.5744, respectively. This is
among the lowest between Chinese dialects. The Yue dialect group has retained many
elements of the pronunciation of medieval Chinese. At the same time the spoken language also
exhibits many vestiges of the vocabulary and syntax of the language of the original Yue
inhabitants of Guangdong.
The second major dialect group is the Min. This is one of the most heterogeneous
Chinese dialect groups and many of the dialects in the group are mutually unintelligible.
Concentrations of speakers of this dialect are found in Fujian 福建, Taiwan 台灣, Guangdong,
and Hainan 海南 provinces. They number 4.2 percent of the Han-Chinese population. There
are also approximately 15,000,000 Chinese abroad tracing their ancestries to the Min dialect.
The overwhelming majority of Min dialect speakers outside Fujian, including those in
Guangdong, trace their origins to southern Fujian, where the dialect is known as Minnan 閩南
(southern Min).
Minnan speakers comprised an estimated 26 percent of the Guangdong population. The
largest concentration, comprising about 70 percent of Minnan speakers in Guangdong, is in the
densely populated Han River Delta in northeast Guangdong, where the variety spoken in
Chaozhou 潮州 (near the port of Shantou 汕頭 [Swatow]) is considered the standard. Another
sizable concentration comprising about a fifth of the Minnan speakers in Guangdong live in the
Leizhou Peninsula 雷州半島 in southern Guangdong. There are also small enclaves in other
parts of the province. For example, in the Pearl River Delta there are more than 200,000 in the
Longdu 隆都 (Cantonese Lung Doo), Nanlang 南蓢 (Cantonese Namlong) and Sanxiang 三鄉
(Cantonese Samheung) areas in Zhongshan, as well as Qi'ao 淇澳 Island in Zhuhai.
The third major dialect is the Hakka. Populations speaking this dialect are found in
Guangxi, Fujian, Taiwan, Jiangxi 江西, Hunan 湖南, and Sichuan 四川, but the largest
concentrations are in Guangdong. The pronunciation of Meizhou 梅州 (formerly Meixian 梅縣)
in Guangdong is considered the standard. About 3.7 per cent of the Han Chinese populations
are speakers of this dialect. There are also approximately 5,000,000 Chinese abroad who claim
Hakka ancestry. Hakkas claim that their dialect was derived from Chinese as spoken in north
China, but the modern dialect shares many common features with the Cantonese and Min
dialects.
Hakka speakers in Guangdong number about 22 percenrt of the population. Their
heartland is the mountainous terrain in the East River basin and the northeastern part of the
province; however, there are also small concentrations in the Pearl River Delta and in southern
Guangdong.
The remaining population in Guangdong, numbering in the order of million or two,
includes speakers of Shaozhou Tuyu 韶州土語 that exists as a number of enclaves surrounded
by Hakka speakers in northern Guangdong. There are also members of non-Han nationalities,
such as the Yao 瑤, She 畬, and Zhuang 壯 living mostly in remote mountainous areas, that
speak their own languages.
A numerous group once upon a time was the Danjia 蜑家 (Danga, Tanka), also known
as Danmin 蛋民 (Danman) and Boat People 水上居民, most of whom used to live on boats.
Most were found in the waterways of Guangdong Province, but they were also in neighboring
Hong Kong, Fujian, Guangxi, and Hainan. The exact population was uncertain. A 1932
Guangzhou census gave a figure of around 100,000 for the city of Guangzhou alone, and
estimates varied from several hundred thousands to two million in South China. The Danjia
population in Guangdong spoke a modified version of the Cantonese dialect, but scholars
disagreed regarding the origins of the group. In imperial China, they were classified as part of
the jianmin 賤民 or lowly people, and faced much discrimination in Chinese society. After the
founding of the PRC, however, the government considered the group as Han Chinese and
entitled to equal treatment in society. Many were encouraged to move ashore to live and work,
where for all practical purposes they have merged with the rest of the population.
Him Mark Lai
April 16, 2008
Bibliography
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Chen Zhengxiang. Guangdong dizhi [Gazetteer of Guangdong geography] (Hong Kong: Tiandi Tushu
Youxian Gongsi, 1978).
Kani Hiroaki. A General Survey of the Boat People in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Southeast Asia Studies
Section, New Asia Research Institute, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1967).