Liangguang (;

Postal romanization Postal romanization was a system of transliterating Chinese place names developed by postal authorities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For many cities, the corresponding postal romanization was the most common English-language for ...

: Liangkwang) is a

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

term for the province of Guangdong and the former province and present autonomous region of

Guangxi Guangxi (; ; Chinese postal romanization, alternately romanized as Kwanghsi; ; za, Gvangjsih, italics=yes), officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (GZAR), is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the People's Republic ...

, collectively. It particularly refers to the viceroyalty of Liangguang under the Qing dynasty, when the territory was considered to include Hainan and the leased territories of

British Hong Kong Hong Kong was a colony and later a dependent territory of the British Empire from 1841 to 1997, apart from a period of occupation under the Japanese Empire from 1941 to 1945 during the Pacific War. The colonial period began with the Briti ...

, the French Kouang-Tchéou-Wan and Portuguese Macau. The Viceroyalty of Liangguang existed from 1735 to 1911.

History

Liangguang was originally the land of Hundred Yue, part of the territory of Ouyue. In 207 BC, after defeating

An Dương Vương An Dương Vương () was the king and the only ruler of the kingdom of Âu Lạc, a classical antiquity state centered in the Red River Delta. As the leader of the Âu Việt tribes, he defeated the last Hùng king of the state of Văn Lang an ...

Zhao Tuo Zhao Tuo () or Triệu Đà (Chữ Hán: 趙佗); was a Qin dynasty Chinese general and first emperor of Nanyue. He participated in the conquest of the Baiyue peoples of Guangdong, Guangxi and Northern Vietnam. After the fall of the Qin, he es ...

annexed Âu Lạc territory into Nanhai District to establish Nanyue. The area has been considered the southern expanse of China since the creation of Panyu in 226. Prior to that, the area was known as the Nanhai Commandery.

Guangxi autonomy

In the 1920s and 1930s, the areas of Guangxi dominated by the

Zhuang people The Zhuang (; ; za, Bouxcuengh, italic=yes; ) are a Tai-speaking ethnic group who mostly live in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in Southern China. Some also live in the Yunnan, Guangdong, Guizhou, and Hunan provinces. They form one of th ...

greatly aided the Communist Party of China in the Chinese Civil War. Soon after the Communist victory in 1949, in 1952 the People's Republic of China created a Zhuang autonomous prefecture in the western half of Guangxi. However, some scholars of the Zhuang do not believe that this decision came out of genuine grassroots demands from that ethnic group, who made up only 33% of the province's population, which is contradictory to Chinese scholars that the Zhuang people clearly maintain their distinct culture and lifestyle (i.e. language, religion, etc.).Cen Xianan (2003). On research to Zhuang's Mo Religion Belief. "Economic and Social Development",no.12. p.23-26. Scholars like George Moseley and Diana Lary instead argue that the conversion of Guangxi to a Zhuang autonomous region was designed to foil local sentiment against the Communist Party as well as to smash pan-

Lingnan Lingnan (; Vietnamese: Lĩnh Nam) is a geographic area referring to the lands in the south of the Nanling Mountains. The region covers the modern Chinese subdivisions of Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Hong Kong, and Macau, as well as modern northe ...

sentiment. Shortly afterward, many Cantonese in the Guangxi government were replaced by Zhuangs and Guangxi annexed the Nanlu region of Guangdong in 1952, giving the formerly landlocked region access to the sea. In 1958, the entire province was officially designated the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

Hainan separation

In 1988, Hainan was separated from Guangdong and established as a separate province.

Leased territories

Hong Kong

Hong Kong was leased to the British Empire in 1841 until the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997, when it was converted into a special administrative region.

Kouang-Tchéou-Wan

Kouang-Tchéou-Wan, also known as Zhanjiang, was leased to the French Third Republic in 1898 until the end of World War II in 1946.

Macau

Macau was granted to the Portuguese Empire in 1557 until the transfer of sovereignty over Macau in 1999, when it was converted into a special administrative region.

References

{{coord missing, China Geography of Guangdong Geography of Guangxi Regions of China