Shenzhen
China's instant city and high-tech powerhouse
Few cities have grown so far, so fast. Within living memory Shenzhen was a cluster of fishing and farming villages of perhaps thirty thousand people - today it is a glittering tech metropolis whose urban population runs well into the millions. Chosen as China's first Special Economic Zone in 1980, it became the laboratory for the country's market reforms and now hosts global giants in electronics, telecoms, and finance, a city that essentially designed and built itself in four decades.
Shenzhen lies on the eastern shore of the Pearl River estuary in subtropical Guangdong, directly across the border from Hong Kong, with the South China Sea to the south and green hills rising behind the coastal plain. Its warm, wet maritime climate and deepwater port help drive its trade, and reclaimed land along the bay has expanded the buildable shoreline. The skyline, dominated by the soaring Ping An Finance Centre, has risen almost entirely since the 1990s.
The transformation began when Deng Xiaoping designated the zone in 1980 to attract foreign capital and technology beside capitalist Hong Kong. Migrant workers poured in by the millions to staff factories that first stitched garments and assembled toys and later produced the world's smartphones and drones. Shenzhen has since climbed the value chain to become a center of research, hardware startups, and venture capital, often called China's Silicon Valley and a symbol of the country's economic ascent.