In almost three decades of furious growth, the village of Shenzhen has been transformed into a huge city by throngs of migrant workers drawn to the area chosen, in 1980, to be the first of the mainland's five special economic zones.
Its startling growth led the way for a pattern of migration from rural to urban areas that has reshaped the mainland's settlement pattern.
The first migrants to transform the rural backwater into a modern metropolis were a group of officials, transferred from nearby cities such as Huiyang . They arrived in a community of about 30,000 people that had almost nothing in the way of urban infrastructure.
Shenzhen's tallest building in March 1979 was a three-storey inn, according to city media reports. There were no rental apartments, so single newcomers stayed in dormitories and families had to be housed in nearby villages.
Its location on the border with Hong Kong was both an advantage and disadvantage for Shenzhen. While tens of thousands of overseas investors set up their first Chinese assembly lines there, millions of mainlanders living outside the special economic zone began to dream of heading south to make their fortunes.
Facing the threat of masses of illegal immigrants, authorities built a wire fence, 85km long and 2.8 metres high, between downtown Shenzhen and the rest of the mainland. The only legal way through for non-residents were special passes costing up to 100 yuan (HK$113). But the restrictions failed to curb mainlanders' desire to move to Shenzhen.