Shenzhen is a prefecture-level city in Guangdong, China. A special economic zone, it is located on the east bank of the Pearl River estuary on the central coast of Guangdong, bordering Hong Kong to the south, Dongguan to the north, Huizhou to the northeast, and Macau to the southwest. With a population of 18.2 million in 2025, Shenzhen is the third-most-populous city by urban population in China after Shanghai and Beijing. The Port of Shenzhen is the world's fourth-busiest container port. Shenzhen has established itself as a premier global metropolis with a GDP that has surpassed Hong Kong and Singapore in recent years.
Shenzhen was developed from a largely rural village area into a city in 1979. In the early 1980s, the reform and opening up introduced by Deng Xiaoping resulted in the city becoming the first special economic zone of China due to its close proximity to Hong Kong, attracting foreign direct investment and migrants searching for opportunities. In thirty years, the city's economy and population boomed and has since emerged as a hub for technology, international trade, and finance. As of 2026, Shenzhen has solidified its status as a premier global trading hub, though recent rankings continue to place it alongside other heavyweights like Singapore to rank as the No. 1 mainland Chinese city for foreign trade.
Shenzhen is home to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, one of the largest stock exchanges in the world by market capitalization, and the Guangdong Free-Trade Zone. Shenzhen is ranked as an Alpha− (global first-tier) city by the GaWC. Its nominal GDP has surpassed not only Hong Kong, but another neighboring city, Guangzhou, and it is now a city with one of the ten largest economies in the world. Shenzhen also has the second-largest number of skyscrapers, fifth-highest number of billionaires, and the seventh-most Fortune Global 500 headquarters of any city in the world. It is also the eighth-most competitive and largest financial center in the world, and the world's 18th largest city by scientific research output, and has several higher education institutions, including Shenzhen University and SUSTech. Shenzhen railway station was the last stop on the mainland Chinese section of the Kowloon–Canton Railway.
The city is a global technology hub. In the media Shenzhen is sometimes called China's Silicon Valley. The city's entrepreneurial, innovative, and competitive-based culture has resulted in the city being home to numerous small manufacturers and software companies. Several of these firms have become large technology corporations, such as Huawei, Tencent, DJI, and Oppo. As an important international city, Shenzhen hosts numerous national and international events every year, such as the 2011 Summer Universiade and the China Hi-Tech Fair. Shenzhen is home to the main operations of BYD Company, and is the largest automobile manufacturing city in China. A large portion of Shenzhen's population are migrants from all over China, and the city's population structure skews younger than most cities in China.
Toponymy The earliest recorded mention of the name Shenzhen is in 1410, during the Ming dynasty, but a market town was not established in the area until the Qing dynasty. Shenzhen literally means "deep ditch" in the local vernacular; the words zhen and yong are used colloquially to refer to irrigation ditches. The name was chosen for the city in 1978 by Xi Zhongxun, the father of future Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping and the Party Secretary of Guangdong at the time.
History Prehistory to early republic era
The oldest evidence of humans in the area on which Shenzhen was established dates back during the mid-Neolithic period. Humans have inhabited the area throughout the past 6,700 years. Historic counties were first established in the area 1,700 years ago. The historic towns of Nantou and Dapeng, were built on the area that is now Shenzhen over 600 years ago.
In 214 BC, when Emperor Qin Shi Huang unified China under the Qin dynasty, the area was submitted to the jurisdiction of the established Nanhai Commandery, one of the three commanderies that were set up in Lingnan, and was assimilated into Zhongyuan culture. In 331 AD, the Eastern Jin administration split up Nanhai and established a new (东官郡).Brief History of Shenzhen , Shenzhen Government official website. The seat of both the commandery and Bao'an County, one of its six counties, was located around the modern town of Nantou. In 590, the Sui administration merged the region back into Nanhai. In 757, the Tang administration renamed the county Dongguan, and moved its seat to what is now Dongguan city, although a military garrison remained.
During the 12th century, Nantou and the surrounding area became an important trade hub for salt and spices in the South China Sea.Rule, Ted and Karen, "Shenzhen, the Book", Hong Kong 2014 The area then became known for producing pearls during the 13th century. In the 1362 era, Chinese sailors of a fleet would go to a Mazu temple in Chiwan (in present-day Nanshan District) to pray as they go to Nanyang. The Battle of Tunmen, when the Ming empire won a naval battle against invading Portuguese, was fought south of Nantou at Shenzhen.
To prevent wokou pirates from attacking Shenzhen, its residents were resettled northward. As a result, Bao'an County lost two-thirds of its territory to the neighboring Dongguan and was incorporated into Dongguan in 1669. The mid-19th century Opium Wars resulted in China ceding Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula to Britain. On 21 April 1898 China leased the New Territories to Britain for 99 years and in the following year Xin'an was occupied by British forces for roughly six months. From the of territory that Xin'an held before the treaties, of the county was ceded to Britain.
In response to the Wuchang Uprising in 1911, Xin'an residents rebelled against the local Qing administration and successfully overthrew them. In the same year the Chinese section of the Kowloon–Canton Railway (KCR) was opened to the public. The last stop on the Chinese side was Shenzhen railway station, helping the town's economy and opened Shenzhen up to the world. In 1913, the Republic of China administration renamed Xin'an County back to Bao'an County to prevent confusion from another county of the same name in Henan.
During the Canton–Hong Kong strike in 1925, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions set up a reception station for strike workers in Hong Kong in Shenzhen. Strike workers were also given pickets and armored vehicles by the strike committee to create a blockade around Hong Kong. In 1931 Chen Jitang and his family established several casinos in Shenzhen, the largest of which being Shumchun Casino.
During World War II, the Japanese occupied Shenzhen and Nantou, forcing the Bao'an County government to relocate to the neighboring Dongguan County. In 1941, the Imperial Japanese Army tried to cross into Hong Kong through the Lo Wu Bridge in Shenzhen, though the bridge was blown up by British forces, which prevented the Japanese from entering Hong Kong that way.
1950s to 1980 In 1953, four years after the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Bao'an County government decided to move to Shenzhen, since the town was closer to the KCR and had a larger economy than Nantou. From the 1950s to the end of the 1970s, Shenzhen and the rest of Bao'an County oversaw a huge influx of refugees trying to escape to Hong Kong from the upheavals that were occurring in mainland China, and a range from 100,000 to 560,000 refugees resided in the county.
In January 1978, a Central Inspection Team sent by the State Council investigated and established the issue of creating a foreign trade port in Bao'an County. In May, the investigation team wrote the "Hong Kong and Macao Economic Investigation Report" and proposed to turn Bao'an County and Zhuhai into commodity export bases. In August 1978, the Huiyang District Committee reported to the Provincial Committee on the "Report on the Request for the Change of Bao'an County to Shenzhen". On 18 October, the Standing Committee of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee decided to change Bao'an County into Bao'an City and to turn it into a medium-level prefecture-level city with a foreign trade base. The Huiyang District Committee and the Bao'an County Committee, however, defended the change to rename Bao'an County to Shenzhen, claiming that people in the world know more about Shenzhen and its port than they know about Bao'an County.
On 23 January 1979, the Guangdong provincial administration and the district of Huiyang announced their proposal to rename Bao'an County to Shenzhen and was approved and put into effect by the State Council on 5 March of that year. Also, the city would establish six districts: Luohu, Nantou, Songgang, Longhua, Longgang and Kuiyong. On 31 January 1979, the Central Committee of the Communist Party approved a plan to establish the Shekou Industrial Zone in Shenzhen with the purpose "to lead domestic, overseas, and diversified operations, industrial and commercial integration, and trading" based on the systems of that of Hong Kong and Macau. The Shekou Industrial Zone project was led by Hong Kong-based China Merchants Group under Yuan Geng's leadership and was to become the first export processing industrial zone in mainland China.
At the beginning of April 1979, the Standing Committee of Guangdong Province discussed and proposed to the Central Committee to set up a "trade cooperation zone" in Shenzhen, Zhuhai, and Shantou. In the same month, the Central Working Conference decided on the "Regulations on Vigorously Developing Foreign Trade to Increase Foreign Exchange Income" and agreed to pilot the first special economic zones (SEZ) in Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou, and Xiamen. In November, Shenzhen was elevated to the status of prefecture-level city at the regional level by the Guangdong provincial administration. Hundreds of small villages nearby, such as Yumin Cun, were incorporated into Shenzhen.
Special Economic Zone (1980s–present)
In 1980, Shenzhen had a population of 30,000. In May 1980 the Central Committee designated Shenzhen as the first SEZ in China, which was promoted by then-paramount leader Deng Xiaoping as part of China's reform and opening up. Its objective is to be an experimental ground for the practice of market capitalism within a community guided by the ideals of socialism with Chinese characteristics. On 26 August, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) approved the "Regulations of the Guangdong Special Economic Zone."
In March 1981 Shenzhen was promoted to a sub-provincial division. There were plans for Shenzhen to develop its currency, but the plans were shelved due to the risk and the disagreement that a country should not be operating with two currencies. To enforce law and order in the city, the Shenzhen government erected barbed wire and checkpoints between the land borders of the main sections of the SEZ and the SEZ outskirts, as well as the rest of China, in 1983, which was known as the second line border. Much of Shenzhen's urban development in the 1980s focused in the area around the old border crossing and the market town. Its urbanization was typical for the 1980s.