Dongguan 东莞市

Setting and landscape

Some 96 per cent of the city lies in the Dong River basin. The land is higher in the southeast, where Yinpingzui Mountain (银瓶嘴山) reaches 898 metres, and falls to a northwestern delta of low fields laced with waterways; the southwest is tidal plain on the estuary. The climate is subtropical monsoon, with long summers and no real winter.

History

The Haogang shell-midden site (蚝岗贝丘遗址), more than 5,000 years old, keeps pits, graves and house foundations and is described by the city as the earliest settlement found in Guangdong. The county was founded in 331 as Bao’an (宝安县) and renamed Dongguan in 757; Xiangshan (香山县), today’s Zhongshan, was split from it in 1152, and Xin’an (新安县), today’s Shenzhen, in 1573. When the Qing confined foreign trade to Guangzhou, ships bound for its Thirteen Hongs had to pass Humen (虎门), where Lin Zexu (林则徐) destroyed confiscated opium in 1839. Dongguan became a prefecture-level city in 1988.

What to see

In Humen, Lin Zexu’s opium-destruction pools lie within the grounds of the Opium War Museum (鸦片战争博物馆); the pools and the Humen forts have been national key protected sites since 1982. Keyuan (可园), a garden in Guancheng (莞城) that the Qing official Zhang Jingxiu (张敬修) began building in 1850, is one of Guangdong’s four famous gardens. Two villages are China Historic and Cultural Villages: Nanshe (南社村) in Chashan (茶山镇), founded in the late Southern Song with comb-pattern lanes, and Tangwei (塘尾村) in Shipai (石排镇), whose 21 ancestral halls stand inside an 860-metre wall with 17 watchtowers.

Food and local products

Guanxiang (莞香), a prized agarwood that thrived in Dongguan’s soil, was sent as tribute and shipped overseas along the Maritime Silk Road; one view holds that Hong Kong, the “fragrant harbour”, was named for the incense its ports shipped. Its making technique, from Dalingshan (大岭山镇), has been on the national intangible heritage list since 2014. Daojiao zongzi (道滘裹蒸粽) wrap glutinous rice, salted egg yolk, lotus seeds, mung beans and pork belly in bamboo leaves and are boiled for hours, and Houjie sausages (厚街腊肠), made since Ming and Qing times, are oval, dark purple and slightly larger than a pigeon’s egg.

Getting oriented

Guangzhou lies to the north, Shenzhen to the south and Huizhou to the east; central Guangzhou is 59 km to the northwest, central Shenzhen 99 km to the southeast and central Hong Kong 140 km away. The Ganzhou–Shenzhen high-speed railway (赣深高铁) and the Foshan–Dongguan intercity line (佛莞城际) serve the city, which has a metro.

Highlights

• Opium War Museum 鸦片战争博物馆: Museum in Humen whose grounds hold Lin Zexu's opium-destruction pools.
• Keyuan 可园: Garden begun in 1850 by the Qing official Zhang Jingxiu, one of Guangdong's four famous gardens.
• Nanshe Village 南社村: Village in Chashan founded in the late Southern Song, with comb-pattern lanes.
• Tangwei Village 塘尾村: Walled village in Shipai with 21 ancestral halls and 17 watchtowers on its wall.