Bao'an County

Bao'an County, formerly named Xin'an County, was a historic county in South China. It roughly follows the administrative boundaries of modern-day Hong Kong and the city of Shenzhen. For most of its history, the administrative center of the county was in Nantou.

Bao'an County 寶安縣
County of China
331–1979
Demonym	Qing China
History
• Established	331
• Disestablished	1979
Succeeded by Tamão British Hong Kong Dongguan Shenzhen
Today part of	People's Republic of China Guangdong Province Dongguan City Shenzhen City  Hong Kong

Bao'an County
Simplified Chinese	宝安县
Traditional Chinese	寶安縣
Postal	Poon County
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Bǎo'ān Xiàn Wade–Giles Pao^3-an^1 Hsien^4 Hakka Romanization Bau^3on^1 Hien^4 Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization Bóu ōn yuhn Jyutping Bou^2 on^1 jyun^6
Xin'an County
Simplified Chinese	新安县
Traditional Chinese	新安縣
Postal	Sunon County
Literal meaning	New peace
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Xīn'ān Xiàn Wade–Giles Hsin^1-an^1 Hsien^4 Hakka Romanization Sin^1on^1 Hien^4 Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization San^1 on^1 jyun^6 Jyutping Sān ōn yuhn

History

During the Three Kingdoms, the later Bao'an County, along with Dongguan and Boluo counties, formed a single large district with the name Boluo (博羅).[1]

In 331, the Eastern Jin Dynasty established Bao'an County, one of six counties under Dōngguān (東官) Prefecture. This prefecture's area included modern Shenzhen and Dongguan.[2] In the second year of the Zhide of Suzong under the Tang Dynasty (757 AD), Dōngguān was renamed to Dōngguǎn (東莞).

Map of San-On District, drawn from the observations made by the Italian missionary Simeone Volonteri, and published in 1866.

In the 27th year of Hongwu Emperor's (1368–1399, founder of the Ming dynasty) reign, Hongwu appointed an officer with the title Shou-yu-suo (Chinese: 守御所; lit.: 'Protector of the region') to protect the local population from robbers and vagabonds which increasingly infested the district.[1]

In 1573, the first year of the reign of Wanli of the Ming Dynasty, Xin'an County (sometimes referred to as district) was established as a separate administrative division of Guangzhou Prefecture. The area was then separated from the old Dongguan County due to military reasons.[3]

Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory, an unequal treaty signed between Qing China and the United Kingdom in 1898, shows that south of the Shenzhen River of Xin'an County was leased out to British government.

Under the Qing Dynasty, Xin'an County was one of the fourteen districts under the department of Guangdong. During the Great Clearance (1661–1669), most of Xin'an County was affected by the coastal evacuation. However Xin'an ceased to be a separate administrative county by the 5th year of Kangxi (1666), and the areas not affected by the evacuation were temporarily absorbed into the adjoining Dongguan County until the lift of the ban in 1669.[3] From 1842 to 1898, 1055.61 km² out of 3076 km² of Xin'an County was ceded to the United Kingdom to form Hong Kong.[2]

Cession of Hong Kong

See also: History of Hong Kong (1800s–1930s)

The area commonly referred to as Hong Kong was successively ceded or leased from the county to Britain in 1842, 1860 and 1898 under the Treaty of Nanking (Hong Kong Island), Convention of Peking (Kowloon), and Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory (New Territories).

Republic of China era

After the founding of the Republic of China in 1913, the name of Xin'an was changed back to Bao'an.[2]

People's Republic of China era

See also: Shenzhen

In 1953, Shenzhen replaced Nantou as the administrative centre, due to the increasing prominence of the town as the southern terminus of the Chinese section of the Kowloon Canton Railway.[4]

In 1979, Bao'an County was renamed Shenzhen City after its county town, and most part of Shenzhen city became a Special Economic Zone a year later.

References

Citations

1. Krone 1859.
2. Brief History of Shenzhen Archived April 16, 2008, at the Wayback Machine, Shenzhen Government official website.
3. James Hayes: "The Hong Kong Region: Its Place in Traditional Chinese Historiography and Principal Events Since the Establishment of Hsin-an County in 1573", in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch, Vol. 14, 1974. pp.108-135 Archived 2016-02-07 at the Wayback Machine
4. 昔日边陲小镇深圳的历史渊源. people.com.cn.

Sources

• Mr. Krone (1859). A Notice of the Sanon District, Transactions, Vol. 6, pp. 71–105, Hong Kong (1859).

Further reading

• O'Donnell, Mary Ann (2001). "BECOMING HONG KONG, RAZING BAOAN, PRESERVING XIN'AN: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC ACCOUNT OF URBANIZATION IN THE SHENZHEN SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONE". Cultural Studies. 15 (3–4): 419–443. doi:10.1080/095023800110046641. - Published online on 21 October 2010.

See also

• History of Hong Kong under Imperial China
• Gazetteer of Xin'an County