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 form ...

: Liangkwang) is a Chinese term for the

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions out ...

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 ...

and the former province and present

autonomous region An autonomous administrative division (also referred to as an autonomous area, entity, unit, region, subdivision, or territory) is a subnational administrative division or internal territory of a sovereign state that has a degree of autonomy� ...

Guangxi Guangxi (; ; alternately romanized as Kwanghsi; ; za, Gvangjsih, italics=yes), officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (GZAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in South China and bordering Vietnam ...

, collectively. It particularly refers to the viceroyalty of Liangguang 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 ...

, when the territory was considered to include

Hainan Hainan (, ; ) is the smallest and southernmost province of the People's Republic of China (PRC), consisting of various islands in the South China Sea. , the largest and most populous island in China,The island of Taiwan, which is slightly l ...

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 British ...

, the French Kouang-Tchéou-Wan and

Portuguese Macau Portuguese Macau (officially the Province of Macau until 1976, and then the Autonomous Region of Macau from 1976 to 1999) was a Portuguese colony that existed from the first official Portuguese settlement in 1557 to the end of colonial rul ...

. 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 ...

annexed Âu Lạc territory into Nanhai District to establish

Nanyue Nanyue (), was an ancient kingdom ruled by Chinese monarchs of the Zhao family that covered the modern Chinese subdivisions of Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Hong Kong, Macau, southern Fujian and central to northern Vietnam. Nanyue was establis ...

. The area has been considered the southern expanse of China since the creation of

Panyu Panyu, alternately romanized as Punyu, is one of 11 urban districts of the prefecture-level city of Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong Province, China. It was a separate county-level city before its incorporation into modern Guangzhou in 200 ...

in 226. Prior to that, the area was known as the

Nanhai Commandery Nanhai Commandery ( zh, 南海郡) was a Chinese commandery that existed from Qin dynasty to Tang dynasty. At the greatest extent, Nanhai's territories covered present-day Guangdong, Hainan, southeastern Guangxi and the southern tip of Fujian. The s ...

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 on ...

greatly aided the

Communist Party of China The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Ci ...

in the

Chinese Civil War The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China and forces of the Chinese Communist Party, continuing intermittently since 1 August 1927 until 7 December 1949 with a Communist victory on main ...

. Soon after the Communist victory in 1949, in 1952 the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

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 nort ...

sentiment. Shortly afterward, many Cantonese in the Guangxi government were replaced by Zhuangs and Guangxi annexed the Nanlu region of

in 1952, giving the formerly landlocked region access to the sea. In 1958, the entire province was officially designated the Guangxi Zhuang

Autonomous Region An autonomous administrative division (also referred to as an autonomous area, entity, unit, region, subdivision, or territory) is a subnational administrative division or internal territory of a sovereign state that has a degree of autonomy� ...

Hainan separation

In 1988,

was separated from Guangdong and established as a separate province.

Leased territories

Hong Kong

Hong Kong was leased to the

British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts e ...

in 1841 until the

transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong Sovereignty of Hong Kong was transferred from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China (PRC) at midnight on 1 July 1997. This event ended 156 years of British rule in the former colony. Hong Kong was established as a special admin ...

in 1997, when it was converted into a special administrative region.

Kouang-Tchéou-Wan

Kouang-Tchéou-Wan, also known as

Zhanjiang Zhanjiang (), historically spelled Tsamkong, is a prefecture-level city at the southwestern end of Guangdong province, People's Republic of China, facing Haikou city to the south. As of the 2020 census, its population was 6,981,236 (6,994,832 ...

, was leased to the

French Third Republic The French Third Republic (french: Troisième République, sometimes written as ) was the system of government adopted in France from 4 September 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War, until 10 July 1940 ...

in 1898 until the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

in 1946.

Macau

Macau Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...

was granted to the

Portuguese Empire The Portuguese Empire ( pt, Império Português), also known as the Portuguese Overseas (''Ultramar Português'') or the Portuguese Colonial Empire (''Império Colonial Português''), was composed of the overseas colonies, factories, and the ...

in 1557 until the

transfer of sovereignty over Macau The transfer of sovereignty of Macau (; pt, Transferência da soberania de Macau) from Portugal to the People's Republic of China (PRC) occurred on 20 December 1999. Macau was settled by Portuguese merchants in 1557, during the Ming dynasty ...

in 1999, when it was converted into a special administrative region.

References

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