Kaiping (), alternately romanized in Cantonese as Hoiping, is a county-level city in Guangdong Province, China. It is located ín the western section of the Pearl River Delta and administered as part of the prefecture-level city of Jiangmen. The surrounding area, especially Sze Yup (), is the ancestral homeland of many overseas Chinese, particularly in the United States. Kaiping has a population of 688,242 as of 2017 and an area of . The locals speak a variant of the Sze Yup dialect.
History
During the Northern Song dynasty (960–1127), Kaiping was under the administration of Xin'an county () Under the Qing (1649), made up part of the commandery of Shiuhing (Zhaoqing). It was promoted to county-level city status in 1993.
Administration
Administratively, Kaiping is administered as part of the prefecture-level city of Jiangmen.
Geography
Kaiping's city centre is located on the Tanjiang River, away from Guangzhou, on the edge of the county Kaiping west of the Pearl River Delta. Kaiping consists of broken terrain, mostly either rocky or swampy, with only a third of the land arable. The county is shaped like a giant question mark (see map, in pink) and includes rural areas as well as three port cities: Changsha, Xinchang, and Dihai.
Climate
Notable people
Wing-tsit Chan: Chinese American scholar
Ed Chau: member of the California State Assembly
George Chow: member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia
Yun Gee: Chinese American artist
Víctor Joy Way: Chinese Peruvian politician
Betty Kwan Chinn: Chinese American philanthropist
Lee Quo-wei (1918–2013): former Hong Kong banker
Liang Xiang: former Governor of Hainan
Betty Ong: American flight attendant aboard American Airlines Flight 11
Jean Quan: former mayor of Oakland, California
Bing Thom: Chinese Canadian architect and urban designer
Szeto Wah (1931–2011): Hong Kong politician
Szutu, Chiu: scholar, his publishing included inter generation of Chinese new zealanders, the biography of architecet Ron Fong
Delbert E. Wong: Los Angeles County jurist who was the first judge in the continental United States of Chinese descent Ken Hom: Chinese-American chef, BBC TV presenter, and author
Sights
Kaiping Diaolou
Kaiping Diaolous () are fortified multi-storey towers constructed in the village countryside of mainly the Kaiping area. They were built from the early Qing dynasty to the early 20th century, reaching a peak in the 1920s and 1930s, with the financial aid of overseas Chinese, when there were more than three thousand of these structures. Today, 1,833 diaolou are still standing, with the most in the towns of Shuikou (), Tangkou (), Baihe (), Chikan (), and Xiangang (), in that order (see map in article by Batto).
In the late 19th and early 20th century, Kaiping was a region of major emigration abroad, and a melting pot of ideas and trends brought back by overseas Chinese, Huaqiao, made good. As a consequence, many watchtowers incorporated architectural features from China and the West. These were examples of the Qiaoxiang () architecture. The diaolou were built by villagers during a time of chaos and served two purposes: housing and protecting against forays by bandits.
In 2007, the Kaiping diaolou and villages were added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites and consist of four separate restored village areas: Zilicun village () in Tangkou, Sanmenli village () in Chikan, Jinjiangli village () in Xiangang, and Majianglong village cluster () in Baihe township.
The Kaiping diaolou was the location for parts of the filming of 2010 movie Let the Bullets Fly ().