If Google Street View had been around in the 1970s, images of Shenzhen would have been fairly uniform: large stretches of green farmland, the odd dusty trail, a few scattered villages - and that's it.
Fast forward to 2012, and Shenzhen is putting the 'O!' in metropolis. It's the fastest-moving city in the country, boosted by Special Economic Zone status, inhabited by a youthful population who have come from all over China to seek their fortunes, and capped with some of the most significant buildings on the face of the earth. Spread along the boundary with Hong Kong, and reaching further north into the mainland, Shenzhen is linked by a well-developed public transport network, which includes frequent buses, trains and an expanding metro system.
The international airport is Shenzhen's prime gateway to the rest of the world, while numerous ferries connect the city to the rest of the Pearl River Delta.
The numbers speak for themselves. In 2010, Shenzhen's economy climbed healthily and steadily towards the future. Its GDP grew by 12 per cent to 951.09 billion yuan (HK$1.17 trillion), and total retail sales of consumer goods increased by just over 17 per cent to 300.08 billion yuan. Foreign trade volume increased by a substantial 28.4 per cent, to US$346.75 billion. Export volumes performed similarly spectacularly, increasing 26.1 per cent to US$204.18 billion, putting Shenzhen first among the nation's large and medium-sized cities for the 18th year in a row.
Much of the economic activity in Shenzhen centres on its trio of free trade zones, whose economic advantages have attracted such international heavy-hitters as Sony, Samsung, Walmart and Panasonic. Cargoes transported from outside the boundary into the free-trade zone or vice versa are deemed free of customs duties and licenses, substantially reducing operating costs. Cargoes transported into the domestic non-free trade zone from the free trade zone are regarded as imports, while those going in the opposite direction are regarded as exports.
Shenzhen's many commercial roles embrace being a production and research base, and a commodities trading centre of such hi-tech products as computers and software, communications and medical equipment and audio-visual, optical, electromechanical and biomedical products. Shenzhen is home to about 3,000 computer enterprises, and leads China in the production of colour TV sets, furniture, clocks and watches, clothes, jewellery and printing and artistic gifts.