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0 Guangzhou’s identity has always been shaped by openness. Often described as the country’s “millennium commercial capital” and with more than 2,200 years of urban history, Guangzhou is China’s oldest port and a historic gateway to global markets.
If Chengdu shows how youth culture can energize a city from within, Guangzhou reveals how culture can propel outward, stemming from a heritage shaped by trade, exchange and a long-standing openness to the world.
The 5th edition of the World Cities Culture Report (WCCR) highlights Guangzhou’s cultural strategy, which builds directly on this legacy and applies that same outward energy to culture. The result is one of China’s most textured and policy-rich cultural cities, ancient and entrepreneurial at the same time.
A city built on exchange
Let’s look at the historical backdrop. Guangzhou’s Cantonese opera, its traditional music and the legendary Thirteen Hongs of Canton trading houses – the Thirteen Factories, where the Qing government managed foreign trade – are heritage assets of a city that has spent two millennia at the intersection of cultures.
The WCCR highlights this as an example of a quiet economic development strategy: by stimulating the creative economy around Lingnan heritage assets, the city is building new industries on old foundations.
Design Week and cultural diplomacy
Guangzhou Design Week, founded in 2006, has grown into one of Asia’s most substantial annual design events. It now operates through partnerships with over 30 countries and connects with global events such as Milan Design Week. In the WCCR’s regional analysis, it is named as a key driver of internationalization and tourism for the East Asian city group – an instrument of cultural diplomacy that positions Guangzhou not just as a commercial city but as a creative capital in the international arena.
What Guangzhou gets right
Guangzhou’s story in the report shows that its strength lies in balance. This is a city deeply local and historically global at the same time.
In a period where cities worldwide are reassessing how culture supports growth, Guangzhou demonstrates how a trading city can leverage its historical openness to build a modern cultural economy. The Flower Market, Design Week and the digital culture agenda are not isolated projects. They reflect the philosophy that heritage stays alive in conversation with the present and that a port city built on exchange should keep the emphasis, especially now when culture is as much of a currency as commerce has ever been.
Zaruhi Poghosyan is a multimedia editor for CGTN Digital. This is the fourth article in our city-by-city series exploring five Chinese cities that are investing in long-term resilience through culture and redefining what it means to be a global city in the 21st century. Data and findings cited in this article are drawn from the 5th edition of the World Culture Cities Forum Report. Next in the series: Nanjing.
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