Canton (historical) — modern Guangzhou

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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.