Humen, a county in the heart of the Pearl River Delta, is best known as the place where Qing dynasty imperial commissioner Lin Zexu burned 1.4 million kg of British opium in June 1839.
His defiant act angered London, triggering the Opium War that eventually led to the Treaty of Nanking under which Hong Kong Island was ceded to the British.
These days Humen is better known as a manufacturing hub.
Since the 1980s, Dongguan - of which Humen is a part - has become one of China's economic success stories.
The Pearl River Delta has prospered as Hong Kong and Taiwan transferred their manufacturing businesses to the mainland for its cheap labour and land. In the case of Hong Kong, 90 per cent of its manufacturing capacity was said to have been moved across the border, while Taiwan has relocated 35 per cent of its manufacturing output.
Since Humen set up its first joint venture processing plant in 1978 the county, with a population of 108,000, has attracted US$1 billion (HK$7.8 billion) in foreign investment and is the home of 1,400 foreign-invested companies and hundreds of thousands of migrant labourers from inland provinces.