Why Guangdong?

Sorry if I'm making too many threads. I was reading about immigration to the US in the 19th century, and came across the story of Chinese immigration to the US. It's common knowledge that the vast majority of Chinese immigrants initially came from Guangdong.

What I can't figure out is why. So, anyone who knows their 19th century Chinese history, why did all the immigrants come from that particular region of China, instead of from all over the country?
 
http://apa.si.edu/ongoldmountain/gallery1/gallery1.html

Journey To Gold Mountain
Chinese immigrants have come to America seeking a good life for their families for over 150 years.

Chinese Americans have created a lasting legacy in the United States. Many Chinese first came during the California Gold Rush. San Francisco was known as Gum Saan - "Gold Mountain" - a place of freedom and prosperity. "Gold Mountain Travelers" were part of an exodus from Southeast China.

Before 1900, economic problems at home and job opportunities abroad caused about 2.5 million people to leave China. More than 322,000 Chinese came to the United States between 1850 and 1882.

About 322,000 Chinese came to the United States between 1850 and 1882. Most nineteenth-century Chinese sojourners came from the provinces of Guangdong and Fujian in South China.

Many Chinese Americans today trace their roots to the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong Province. This region consists of eight districts, each roughly the size of an American county.

Early immigrants to the continental United States were predominantly from the Sze Yup District, while Hawaii attracted people from Zhongshan.
 
Sorry if I'm making too many threads. I was reading about immigration to the US in the 19th century, and came across the story of Chinese immigration to the US. It's common knowledge that the vast majority of Chinese immigrants initially came from Guangdong.

What I can't figure out is why. So, anyone who knows their 19th century Chinese history, why did all the immigrants come from that particular region of China, instead of from all over the country?
because Guangdong+Hongkong(cities) were the only two that the Chinese people could go through to go to the US. If the treaty port was in Qingdao, for instance, we would see a lot of Chinese coming from Northern China.
 
because Guangdong+Hongkong(cities) were the only two that the Chinese people could go through to go to the US. If the treaty port was in Qingdao, for instance, we would see a lot of Chinese coming from Northern China.

Also Southern Chinese had a stronger tradition of migration. the Nanyang Chinese of SE Asia are also mainly Southern Chinese (Hokkien, Teochew and Cantonese for the most part)
 
I have some NZ perspectives to put through here. In the NZ gold rushes, most of the Chinese migrants were Cantonese, from Guangdong and Fujian, even though NZ was British at the time. So I would put it down to a tradition of migration, although most Chinese in New Zealand now are Mandarin-speakers. At least in Auckland, where the vast majority of Asian New Zealanders are.

Also, Croatian migrants that came to New Zealand came from a relatively small area of Dalmatia. Dalmatians too had a tradition of migration, evident in the large American, Chilean, Australian, South African and New Zealand Croat diaspora, and almost all of these migrants were Dalmatians, rather than Pannonian or Slavonian Croats. Each section of coast (pretty much every cluster of villages) migrated to a different area. For instance, the Head Boy of my high school (which actually has a very small number of Croats) was descended from migrants from the same village as my family, and we came across a book by a great-uncle, which mentioned his best friend, who had the same surname as the Head Boy!

Although that seems like I digressed a bit, I have a point. It's chain migration. If a relative or neighbour has gone to another country and done alright for themselves, you'll think "why not?" and go yourself. That's why ethnic diasporas tend to be from a close geographic area. I don't know too much about it, but I'd assume that most Irish-Americans could trace their lineages to the same area, and AFAIK most Italian-Americans in the US Northeast are Sicilian rather than Lombard.
 
That's not to say that migration didn't exist for the North Chinese though; frex, migrants from Shandong, Hebei, and other northern provinces formed the vast majority of the settlers of Manchuria and Mongolia in the late 19th century.
 
The most fundamental reason is, hardly to anyone's surprise, food.

Here is a map of Food Self-Sufficiency rate in modern China. Provinces marked in brown can produce more food than they eat, and provinces in grey yields only a fraction of their own consumption.
4kuk.jpg


You can see that the northern provinces (mostly brown) could grow enough food to feed their populations, while the Expatriate Homelands: Fujian, Hainan and Guangdong, are all grey.

Guangdong came the lowest in all provinces (only bettering the three Municipalities), with only 32.95% of the food they eat are locally produced.

Of course a modern map does not exactly reflect 17-19th century situations, but the general picture stay the same throughout the centuries: the southern coastal provinces are infertile due to mountainous terrain and subtropical climate, people are forced to seek living-hood elsewhere.

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This may be why ever since Song Dynasty the southern coastal provinces had a rich maritime tradition: trade, seafaring, immigration and emigration, etc.

Song Dynasty wisely encouraged such a tradition and Custom income contributed to its wealth. Ming and Qing tried to curb it, leading to poverty as well as rampant smuggling and piracy.

The other major agriculturally unproductive province is Zhejiang, incidentally she also have a maritime tradition, but historically her major trade partner was Japan.
 
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That's not to say that migration didn't exist for the North Chinese though; frex, migrants from Shandong, Hebei, and other northern provinces formed the vast majority of the settlers of Manchuria and Mongolia in the late 19th century.

Of course, given that Manchuria and Mongolia were closer for them and Chinese governments often encouraged the Han-icisation of the frontier provinces.
 
The most fundamental reason is, hardly to anyone's surprise, food.

Here is a map of Food Self-Sufficiency rate in modern China. Provinces marked in brown can produce more food than they eat, and provinces in grey yields only a fraction of their own consumption.


You can see that the northern provinces (mostly brown) could grow enough food to feed their populations, while the Expatriate Homelands, Fujian, Hainan and Guangdong, are all grey.

Guangdong came the lowest in all provinces (only bettering the three Municipalities), with only 32.95% of the food they eat are locally produced.

Of course a modern map does not exactly reflect 17-19th century situations, but the general picture stay the same throughout the centuries: the southern coastal provinces are infertile due to mountainous terrain and subtropical climate, people are forced to seek living-hood elsewhere.

==========================================================

This may be why ever since Song Dynasty the southern coastal provinces had a rich maritime tradition: trade, seafaring, immigration and emigration, etc.

Song Dynasty wisely encouraged such a tradition and Custom income contributed to its wealth. Ming and Qing tried to curb it, leading to poverty as well as rampant smuggling and piracy.

The other major agriculturally unproductive province is Zhejiang, incidentally she also have a maritime tradition, but historically her major trade partner was Japan.

I am not certain this can be entirely the case; the South was historically extremely fertile; and as I mentioned above, migration pressures were hardly an exclusively southern phenomenon. They were badly devastated by the Qing Conquest and the civil wars, but that's another thing. For my part, I have a suspicion that the massive decrease in food-self-sufficiency has more to do with the relatively rapid pace of industrialization and urbanization in the South, combined with the mass entry of a huge population of migrant workers to the cities.

Of course, given that Manchuria and Mongolia were closer for them and Chinese governments often encouraged the Han-icisation of the frontier provinces.

Precisely the case, essentially.
 
I agree with Zmflavius, especially considering that the map presents statistics as of 2012, hardly representative of the earlier fertility (or lack thereof) of the region.
 
You might also have to consider that a lot of immigration is based on word of mouth, hence why you establish China towns, Little Italys, German towns and Irish enclaves.

You get a few people from Town A in <country> migrating to Town B in the United States now suddenly everyone in Town A know if they were to migrate they know a few people in Town B in the US and will have a community to fit into.
 
I am not certain this can be entirely the case; the South was historically extremely fertile; and as I mentioned above, migration pressures were hardly an exclusively southern phenomenon. They were badly devastated by the Qing Conquest and the civil wars, but that's another thing.
We are not talking about the same south. Jiangnan Provinces (like Jiangsu, Hunan, Anhui) are extremely fertile, but further south, the subtropic (Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong) is not.

Dark brown or black colour in soil indicates that the soil has a high organic matter content, China's subtropic red soil is infertile because rain washed away most of its organic contents.

For my part, I have a suspicion that the massive decrease in food-self-sufficiency has more to do with the relatively rapid pace of industrialization and urbanization in the South, combined with the mass entry of a huge population of migrant workers to the cities.

Yes. But the coastal provinces further north (Jiangsu and Shandong) are industrialized too, but they perform well in food self-sufficiency.
 
We are not talking about the same south. Jiangnan Provinces (like Jiangsu, Hunan, Anhui) are extremely fertile, but further south, the subtropic (Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong) is not.

Dark brown or black colour in soil indicates that the soil has a high organic matter content, China's subtropic red soil is infertile because rain washed away most of its organic contents.



Yes. But the coastal provinces further north (Jiangsu and Shandong) are industrialized too, but they perform well in food self-sufficiency.

Ah, I hadn't known that in fact. That's quite interesting.
 
The most fundamental reason is, hardly to anyone's surprise, food...
may I also add that the increase of food production in manchuria was because the Japanese introduced rice production in Manchukuo in the 1920s and 1930s, hence having no influence in the era we may be talking about (early-late 19th century).
 
may I also add that the increase of food production in manchuria was because the Japanese introduced rice production in Manchukuo in the 1920s and 1930s, hence having no influence in the era we may be talking about (early-late 19th century).

Yes, I agree.

I would not use the word Manchuria because Han Chinese dwelled in what was to become "Manchuria" for centuries, before the newly-risen Manchu State enthnically cleansed the land of Chinese following their victory against the collapsing Ming.

During the Qing Dynasty, the Manchus sealed "Manchuria" to the Han Chinese with the Willow Palisade , and therefore the region too sparsely populated for any agricultural activities.

Though I'm not sure about how much role Japan played in re-agriculturalizing the Northeast.

But I know too little about the situation in Ming Dynasty and before to comment on its influences. Ming Chinese Liaodong ( a concept far larger than today's Luaodong peninsular) was agricultural, though I have to check historical accounts to verify their crop and their yield.
 
The north east agriculture is predominately based on Corn, which was introduced to China.
 
The north east agriculture is predominately based on Corn, which was introduced to China.

Thank you. But which period are you talking about? All accounts I knew about the introduction of New World Crops dates back to the Late Ming and Early Qing period, and all happened in the south.
 
Guangdong was (and is) one of the most densely populated provinces of China. One reason it would have a disproportionate number of emigrants is simply because it had a disproportionate number of Chinese in the first place.

Another: Remember the Taiping Rebellion? Started in Guangdong. Lots of people had a good reason to get the heck out of Guangdong, whether because they had been part of the rebellion or simply because they didn't want to live in a battlefield or suffer reprisals for their neighbor's deeds. Even before that, it had more ethnic tensions than most provinces (relatively few Manchu ever moved that far south, so the Han never really stopped seeing them as foreign intruders in Guangdong).

The reasons mentioned upthread probably have some validity too; it's unlikely there's a single, simple answer to such a question.
 
Thank you. But which period are you talking about? All accounts I knew about the introduction of New World Crops dates back to the Late Ming and Early Qing period, and all happened in the south.

I think he may mean wheat, which has been cultivated in Northern China since ancient times.

(Or maybe it's barley or millet, I don't recall off the top of my head)
 
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