China

HONG KONG
Hong Kong started out as a regional trading port under Chinese rule, and remained so until a conflict with Britain over the city’s refusal to import opium ended with it falling under British control in 1842. Over the following century its population quickly expanded and it developed into one of the key Asian industrial territories. It ceded from the United Kingdom in 1997 when sovereignty was transferred to the People’s Republic of China. Today, with a population of 6.9 million people, Hong Kong is one of world most densely populated areas.
Read the latest analysis of the Hong Kong property market

BEIJING
A city of sorts existed at the site of present day Beijing as far back as the 1st millennium BC, and the area was continuously occupied until the the 15th century, when Beijing took its current shape. It is believed that Beijing was the largest city in the world from 1425 to 1650 and from 1710 to 1825.
During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the city fell to Japan in 1937 and was made the seat of the Provisional Government of the Republic of China, a puppet state that ruled the ethnic Chinese portions of Japanese-occupied northern China. It was liberated in 1945 with the end of the second world war. In 1949, during the Chinese Civil War, Communist forces entered without a fight and later that year the Communist Party of China, under the leadership of Mao Zedong, announced in Tiananmen the creation of the People’s Republic of China. A period of comparative stagnation followed under the communists until the economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping began to take hold. According to a 2005 newspaper report, the size of the newly developed Beijing land was one and a half times larger than the land of old Beijing.

Today, Beijing is China’s second largest city after Shanghai and is a major transportation hub, with dozens of railways, roads and motorways passing through the city. It is also the focal point of many international flights to China. While Shanghai and Hong Kong dominate in economic fields, Beijing is recognised as the political, educational, and cultural centre of the People’s Republic of China, a position boosted massively when it hosted the 2008 Olympic Games.
In recent years, the expansion of Beijing has also brought to the forefront some problems of urbanisation, such as heavy traffic, poor air quality, the loss of historic neighbourhoods, and significant influx of migrants from poorer regions of the country.
Read the latest analysis of the Beijing property market

SHANGHAI
Shanghai is China’s most populated city with some 20 million people in its extended metropolitan area. It is located on China’s central eastern coast where the Yangtze River empties into the sea.
The city started out as a small town reliant on its fishing and textiles but grew in importance in the 19th century due to its favourable port location. It was one of the cities opened to foreign trade by the 1842 Treaty of Nanking and flourished as a centre of commerce between east and west. Shanghai had become a multinational hub of finance and business by the 1930s. Although Shanghai’s prosperity faltered with Communist takeover and the subsequent cessation of foreign investment, economic reforms in 1990 have resulted in intense development and financing, and in 2005 Shanghai became the world’s busiest cargo port.

The city is also an emerging tourist destination and boasts numerous historical landmarks. Today, Shanghai is mainland China’s center for commerce and finance, and has been described as the “showpiece” of the world’s fastest-growing economy.
Read the latest analysis of the Shanghai property market

HAINAN
Located just off the southern coast of the People’s Republic of China, Hainan is China’s second largest island. Hainan is also China’s southernmost province and is home to some 6 million people. Its endless beaches, deep jungles and tropical climate mean Hainan has long been considered China’s equivalent of Hawaii and over recent years it has developed into one of Asia’s premier resort destinations.

Visitors come to the island to enjoy an array of water sports as well as world class golf and cultural activities. There are also wildlife preserves with exotic animals and birds in the island’s rainforests as well as geothermal hot springs across the island. However, Hainan also enjoys the dubious meteorological distinction of having been hit by at least one typhoon a year for the past 50 years.
Although not exactly known as a gastronomical paradise, Hainanese food does benefit from a range of ethnic influences from Singapore, the Han Chinese and the Miao and Li ethnic groups, both of whom speak languages very close to the Thai.
Hainan island enjoys easy international access via Sanya Phoenix International Airport, servicing a growing number of domestic and international destinations, including Hong Kong, Seoul and Moscow. Read the latest analysis of the Hainan property market

GUANGZHOU
Guangzhou, also sometimes known by its English name Canton, is a port on the Pearl River. It is located about 120 km northwest of Hong Kong and has an official population of around 10 million.
The city has been continuously occupied since 214BC and has a long history of international trade. However, relations with outsiders were not always good and the city was sacked by Persian pirates in the 8th Century. By the middle of the 18th century however, Guangzhou had emerged as one of the world’s great trading ports; a distinction it maintained until the outbreak of the Opium Wars in 1839. Japanese troops occupied Guangzhou from in 1938 until the end of World War II and fell to communist forces in 1949. Vast urban renewal projects were introduced and unlike initiatives introduced elsewhere during the period, the move had a positive impact on the lives of many residents. Reforms by Deng Xiaoping, who came to power in the late 1970s, led to rapid economic growth as he sought to make use of the city’s close proximity to Hong Kong and access to the Pearl River.
As labour costs increased in Hong Kong, manufacturers opened new plants in Guangzhou providing work for floods of former agricultural workers from the surrounding provinces. Cantonese links to overseas Chinese and beneficial tax reforms of the 1990s have also aided rapid growth. Read the latest analysis of the Guangzhou property market