Bao'an County, formerly named Xin'an County, was a historical county in

South China South China () is a geographical and cultural region that covers the southernmost part of China. Its precise meaning varies with context. A notable feature of South China in comparison to the rest of China is that most of its citizens are not n ...

. It roughly follows the administrative boundaries of modern-day

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...

and the city of

Shenzhen Shenzhen (; ; ; ), also historically known as Sham Chun, is a major sub-provincial city and one of the special economic zones of China. The city is located on the east bank of the Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern provi ...

. For most of its history, the administrative center of the county was in Nantou.

History

During the

Three Kingdoms The Three Kingdoms () from 220 to 280 AD was the tripartite division of China among the dynastic states of Cao Wei, Shu Han, and Eastern Wu. The Three Kingdoms period was preceded by the Eastern Han dynasty and was followed by the West ...

, the later Bao'an County, along with Dongguan and Boluo counties, formed a single large district with the name Boluo ().Krone 1859. In 331, the

Eastern Jin Eastern may refer to: Transportation *China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai *Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways *Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991 *Eastern Air Li ...

Dynasty established Bao'an County, one of six counties under Dōngguān () Prefecture. This prefecture's area included modern

and Dongguan.Brief History of Shenzhen
, Shenzhen Government official website. In the second year of the Zhide of Suzong under the

Tang Dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...

(757 AD), Dōngguān was renamed to Dōngguǎn (). Map of Xin'an County (in Canton) in 1866

In the 27th year of

Hongwu Emperor The Hongwu Emperor (21 October 1328 – 24 June 1398), personal name Zhu Yuanzhang (), courtesy name Guorui (), was the founding emperor of the Ming dynasty of China, reigning from 1368 to 1398. As famine, plagues and peasant revolts i ...

's (1368–1399, founder of the

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...

) reign, Hongwu appointed an officer with the title ''Shou-yu-suo'' () to protect the local population from robbers and vagabonds which increasingly infested the district. In 1573, the first year of the reign of

Wanli Wanli was the era name of the Chinese Ming dynasty. Wanli may also refer to: *Wanli Emperor (1563–1620), the 14th emperor of the Chinese Ming dynasty * Wanli District, Nanchang, district of Nanchang, Jiangxi, China * Wanli District, New Taipei ...

of the Ming Dynasty, Xin'an County (sometimes referred to as ''district'') was established as a separate administrative division of Guangzhou Prefecture. The area was then separated from the old Dongguan County due to military reasons. Under the

Qing Dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...

, Xin'an County was one of the fourteen districts under the department of

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively 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. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020 ...

. During the

Great Clearance The Great Clearance (), also translated as the Great Evacuation or Great Frontier Shift, was caused by edicts issued in 1661, 1664, and 1679, which required the evacuation of the coastal areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangnan, and Shandong ...

(1661–1669), most of Xin'an County was affected by the coastal evacuation. However Xin'an ceased to be a separate administrative county by the 5th year of Kangxi (1666), and the areas not affected by the evacuation were temporarily absorbed into the adjoining Dongguan County until the lift of the ban in 1669. From 1842 to 1898, 1055.61 km² out of 3076 km² of Xin'an County was ceded to the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

to form Hong Kong.

Population

According to the 1819 edition of the ''

Gazetteer of Xin'an County ''Xin'an Xianzhi'' (; literally ''Gazetteers of Xin'an County'') were the chorography of the historical Xin'an County (San-On or Sun-On County; literally ''New Peace County''; known at times as the Po-On County (spelt Bao'an in pinyin)) of Guan ...

'', the population of Xin'an County was about 18,000 people in 1642, just prior to the collapse of the

, and the total population was about 4,000 by 1672, three years after the reoccupation of the area at the end of the

Cession of Hong Kong

The area commonly referred to as Hong Kong was successively ceded or leased from the county to Britain in 1842, 1860 and 1898 under the

Treaty of Nanking The Treaty of Nanjing was the peace treaty which ended the First Opium War (1839–1842) between Great Britain and the Qing dynasty of China on 29 August 1842. It was the first of what the Chinese later termed the Unequal Treaties. In the ...

(

Hong Kong Island Hong Kong Island is an island in the southern part of Hong Kong. Known colloquially and on road signs simply as Hong Kong, the island has a population of 1,289,500 and its population density is 16,390/km2, . The island had a population of a ...

Convention of Peking The Convention of Peking or First Convention of Peking is an agreement comprising three distinct treaties concluded between the Qing dynasty of China and Great Britain, France, and the Russian Empire in 1860. In China, they are regarded as amo ...

(

Kowloon Kowloon () is an urban area in Hong Kong comprising the Kowloon Peninsula and New Kowloon. With a population of 2,019,533 and a population density of in 2006, it is the most populous area in Hong Kong, compared with Hong Kong Island and ...

), and

Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory The Convention between the United Kingdom and China, Respecting an Extension of Hong Kong Territory, commonly known as the Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory or the Second Convention of Peking, was a lease signed between Qing C ...

(

New Territories The New Territories is one of the three main regions of Hong Kong, alongside Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula. It makes up 86.2% of Hong Kong's territory, and contains around half of the population of Hong Kong. Historically, it ...

Republic of China era

After the founding of the

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeas ...

in 1913, the name of Xin'an was changed back to Bao'an.

People's Republic of China era

In 1953,

replaced Nantou as the administrative centre, due to the increasing prominence of the town as the southern terminus of the Chinese section of the

Kowloon–Canton Railway The Kowloon–Canton Railway (KCR; ) was a railway network in Hong Kong.Legislative Council information paper CB(1)357/07-08(0 THB(T) CR 8/986/00, CB(1)1749/07-08(0/ref> It was owned and operated by the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation (KCR ...

. In 1979, Bao'an County was renamed Shenzhen City after the name of its county town since 1953, and the southern part of Shenzhen became a

Special Economic Zone A special economic zone (SEZ) is an area in which the business and trade laws are different from the rest of the country. SEZs are located within a country's national borders, and their aims include increasing trade balance, employment, increas ...

a year later. A diminished Bao'an County remained in the new city of Shenzhen outside the SEZ until 1992, when it was replaced by the Bao'an and the Longgang districts.

References

Citations

Sources

* Mr. Krone (1859)
A Notice of the Sanon District
''Transactions'', Vol. 6, pp. 71–105,

(1859).