KWANGTUNG, the southernmost coastal province of China. In common with the other coastal provinces of the south-east (Fukien and Chekiang), Kwangtung is characterised by alter nating long ranges and troughs running parallel to the coast. The coastal ranges proper are bare granitic hills which are broken through completely by the interior drainage only at two points, by the Han-kiang in the extreme east and by the Si-kiang in the centre. The basin of the Han, whose outlet is at Swatow, forms a little world apart and its linguistic affinities are rather with Fukien than Kwangtung. The valleys of the Si-kiang and its affluents, the Pei-kiang and Tung-kiang are the core of the province and the Canton delta, on which these three rivers con verge, is its inevitable focus. The same river valleys form the avenues of communication with the rest of China, the Si-kiang with the south-west and the Pei-kiang with the Yang-tze valley and the north. The Canton delta, ringed round on the north by highland and facing southward over a tropical sea, has an orien tation distinct from the rest of China and has always been the first part of the country to receive external influences. Kwang tung also includes a long coastal strip west of the Canton Delta, stretching almost as far as the Red River delta in Tongking, and the large island of Hainan, opposite the Lui-chow peninsula projecting from this southern coast, is administratively attached to it.
Population is concentrated on the alluvium of the valleys and deltaic lowlands, whose fertility contrasts sharply with the bare granitic hills of the coast and the sandstone uplands of the interior. The density in the Canton delta must be fully equal to that of the Yang-tze delta or the congested districts of the north China plain. But the highlands are relatively thinly peopled and the total population (estimated at over 37 millions) ranks it sixth in order of density among the provinces of China. The dominant element in this population are the Cantonese who occupy the whole of the deltaic and valley lowlands focussing on Canton and the whole western coastal strip. But the Swatow delta and the eastern coastal strip are peopled by the Hoklos (i.e., people of Fukien) who speak a Fukienese dialect, and the whole upper basins of the Han, Tung and Pei rivers by the Hakkas, a vigorous mountain people with a marked group consciousness of its own and distinct social characteristics. There are in addition some much smaller tribal groups scattered along the western border and akin to the Miao of south-west China.
Kwangtung has been one of the main scenes of European contact with China. Canton was the centre of early European trade with China and for almost a century the only port through which foreign trade was permitted. The province contains one out of the original five Treaty Ports set up by the Treaty of Nanking in 1842 and there are three foreign enclaves along its coast : the British Hongkong and the Portuguese Macao on either side of the entrance to the Canton river, and the French Kwangchow wan, an "outlier" of French Tongking, in the south.
Kwangtung under the imperial regime had always a reputation for disaffection. Since the beginning of the present century it has taken the lead in most of the movements of revolt against the Peking Government and European domination and to a large extent originated the Nationalist programme. Its leaders have been largely inspired by external influences. Too isolated in the far south of China to hope for metropolitan status, it remains under the nationalist regime a distinct regional entity into which the adjacent province of Kwang-si tends to be drawn. The Kwang tung lowlands are the only part of China with a truly tropical climate. The uniformly high temperatures and the fairly well distributed rainfall permit cultivation throughout the year en abling the production on the same plot of land of two crops of rice and one of fruit or vegetables. These are the staple sub sistence crops. Rice is grown on the terraced hillsides as well as in the irrigated lowlands but here there are no means of con serving sufficient moisture for a second crop. But the rice pro duction of three million tons is insufficient to feed the thirty seven millions living in the province and another one and a third millions are imported, chiefly from Siam and Annam but also from Wuhu, Chinkiang and Wuchow. Among the other food crops the oranges of the Canton delta, the bananas of the lower Tung valley and the sugar-cane of the Swatow delta are the most promi nent. The same luxuriance of growth is shown by the mulberry which yields six or seven crops a year, giving a greater total production than in any other silk-producing region of China. It has a larger production of reeled silk, the output of the fila tures, than even the Yang-tze delta but, probably because the tropical climate allows of so many crops, this is of rather poorer quality. The natural woodland has been stripped off the coastal hills and remains only along the northern border of the province. Firs from these interior hillsides are floated down the rivers to Fatshan, the timber emporium of the delta. The bamboo is cul tivated throughout but especially along the Bamboo river close to Samshui.
The province still remains (1928) unconnected with the railway systems of the rest of China, but the trunk railway northwards from Canton has penetrated as far as Shiuchow within forty miles of Hunan and will undoubtedly, for obvious strategic reasons, be one of the earliest to be completed under the new Nationalist regime centred at Nanking. Two short railways, from Samshui at the confluence of the Si-kiang and the Pei-kiang and from Kow loon opposite Hongkong, already join the trunk railway at Can ton. An elaborate road system also focussing on Canton is pro jected by the provincial government. (See CANTON.)