China's Silicon Valley — from fishing village to tech megacity in 40 years
Shenzhen is China's most astonishing urban transformation story — a fishing village of 30,000 in 1980 that Deng Xiaoping designated China's first Special Economic Zone, and which became a city of 18 million and the headquarters of Huawei, Tencent, and DJI within a single generation. Its proximity to Hong Kong makes it the most internationally minded city in mainland China, with a food scene that mixes Cantonese classics and Chaoshan cuisine.
Shenzhen was established as China's first Special Economic Zone on July 1, 1980 — Deng Xiaoping's laboratory for capitalist experiment within a socialist system. The city was deliberately placed adjacent to Hong Kong so overseas Chinese capital and expertise could flow in. Its speed of urbanisation — from largely rice paddies to one of the world's largest cities in one generation — is unprecedented in human history. The Shenzhen experiment proved successful enough that China opened three more SEZs in 1984.