Canton (historical) — modern Guangzhou

Assembled from 19 blocks · 3 evidence · 25 related

1. Story
2. Canton is the historical Western name for Guangzhou, the Pearl River port in Guangdong province, southern China; the two names refer to the same city and the change is one of romanisation and usage, not of place. Between 1757 and 1842 the Qing state confined all Western maritime trade to this single port under what is now called the Canton System, with foreign merchants restricted to a riverside enclave of warehouse-offices known as the Thirteen Factories and obliged to deal through the licensed Cohong guild. Practically all tea that reached Europe in that period passed through it. The Canton monopoly ended with the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, which opened four further ports.
3. Knowledge
4. Canton (historical) — modern Guangzhou
5. Connections
6. Tea
7. Cohong (Gonghang)
8. Silver
9. Opium
10. Shanghai
11. Qing trade confined to Canton
12. East India Company's China monopoly ends; Tea Committee founded
13. Lin Zexu destroys confiscated opium at Humen
14. The Opium Wars
15. Treaty of Nanking
16. Evidence
17. Between 1757 and 1842 all Western maritime trade with China was confined to Canton and conducted through the Cohong, with tea the dominant export and silver the dominant means of payment.
18. The Company's Canton trade, its tea purchases and cargo accounting, and its administrative decision-making are documented in a single surviving institutional archive.
19. The treaty opened five ports, ceded Hong Kong, abolished the Cohong monopoly, fixed tariffs and imposed a silver indemnity — and made no mention of opium.