Canton, business city

Canton is the most important city of the South of China, and one of the principal ports of the country. To the shore of the river of the Pearls (Zhujiang), it has turned in a few years in a modern and cosmopolitan city. With a surface of 1.500 square km there lodges a population of 4 million inhabitants (2 more millions and a half in the suburbs). Placed in the tropic, his climate is soft in winter and warm and humid in summer.

The capital of the Province of Guangdong, a province populated by 65 million persons, supports a narrow relation with Hong Kong, with whose inhabitants share language, customs, gastronomy and enclosed origin place.

Founded 2.000 years ago with the name of Yancheng (city of the goats), Canton was from the dynasty There is the most important city of the South of China. In fact, it was a capital of the kingdom Yue of the South established in the area after the collapse of the first dynasty Qin. With the dynasty Tang it turned into one of the principal ports of Asia, up to which there were coming the Malay, Hindu, Persian and Arab merchants. There were secessionist frustrated attempts to the fall of the dynasty Tang, for 55 years it was a capital of a new kingdom Yue established by Liu Yan, and of the dynasty Ming, one of from whose princes it tried to save the city of the conquest manchú.

Across Canton it was where the first commercial contacts took place between the Chinese and the western ones. The first Portuguese and Spanish missionaries entered China across his port, and many years did not happen before the Portugueses were done under control of Macao. During the XVIIIth and XIXth centuries Canton was the only port in which the emperors were allowing the commerce with the western ones, and it was also in Canton where it began to penetrate in China the English opium. Protagonist of the history between China and Occident. The Canton waters attended the destruction of the British opium for the commissioner Lin, in 1841, and the combats of the call I War of the Opium. After the English victory and the Treaty of Nanking, which was opening for the foreign commerce other ports of China, between which Shanghai was, the Canton importance in the foreign relations will be diminishing.

House of the family Chen
It is undoubtedly the most important monument of Canton and one of the most original constructions that can be in China. Finished in 1894 thanks to the effort of 72 of the most powerful members of the prestigious clan Chen, it was destined for the cult for the ancestors, as well as so that the students of the above mentioned clan were preparing for the examinations officials for themselves.

Constructed in the style of the Chinese traditional houses, the most outstanding of the temple there are the magnificent decorations of his roofs, really impressive by his coloring and mastery.

Pagoda of Six Banyanos
Founded in the year 537, it was one of the most important temples of the Zen School. It is said that the sixth patriarch, Hui Neng lived here. He suffered a fire in the Xth century that destroyed him completely. It was reconstructed again in the year 989, except the Pagoda of the Flowers that was not finished up to one century later. Earlier it was called a Temple of the Beautiful Solemnity, but the famous poet Su Dongpo visited it in the year 1.100 and named him. It is possible to rise to the Pagoda, of 57 m, where from there is a good sight of the city. His most important pavilion is the Lounge of Mahavira, with 3 statues of bronze melted in Foshan in 1663. Each one weighs 10 tons and measures 6 meters high. They represent Buddha of the past (Amithaba), that of the Present (Tathagata) and that of future (Maitreya).

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