Greater Pearl River Delta: Historical Evolution towards a Global City-Region

Abstract The Greater Pearl River Delta (GPRD) consists of 11 municipalities, nine of which are located in mainland China (Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Dongguan, Foshan, Zhuhai, Jiangmen, Zhongshan, Zhaoqing, and Huizhou, jointly constituting the Pearl River Delta) and two are Special Administrative Regions (Hong Kong and Macao). All of them have undergone different historical trajectories, with Guangzhou, Macao, Hong Kong, and Shenzhen emerging as key cities within the region at different moments in time and for different economic and political reasons. This article gives an overview of the historical evolution of the GPRD as a geographic region in a number of distinct phases (history until 1949, 1949–1978, 1978–1997/9, and 1997/9–2014), and then poses the question whether it has, anno 2014, evolved into a “global city-region”. Our analysis indicates that different cities have been prominent in different periods and that population numbers, economic figures and mutual interconnectedness among the various cities within the GPRD through various urban infrastructures, but also with regard to production and R&D have grown to such an extent that it can indeed be qualified as a global city-region as defined by Allen Scott (2001), with global city Hong Kong acting as a hinge to the global market. Currently and in the future, the GPRD is the most poly-centric global city-region in the world, although it also appears that its political fragmentation has acted as a barrier to vigorous further development since economic indicators show a relative decline compared to the Yangtze River Delta.

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