THE resident population of the Greater Bay Area reached 69.57 million in 2017. The nine mainland cities in Guangdong Province and two SARs are populated predominantly by Cantonese speakers, although the influx of millions of Mandarin-speaking immigrants in recent decades has slightly diminished the Cantonese linguistic dominance.

Guangdong boasts a unique “Lingnan culture,” or Cantonese culture, which has developed diverse cultural forms in language, architecture, opera (Cantonese opera), painting (Lingnan school of paintings) and cuisine. With the migration of the Cantonese people to the neighboring Hong Kong and Macao, as well as many overseas communities, Lingnan culture has become an influential cultural force in the international community, and forms the basis of the cultures of Hong Kong and Macao.

The two SARs are often characterized as hybrids of East and West — traditional Chinese values emphasizing family and education are blended with progressive Western ideals.

The Bay Area is also an important window to the outside world for the nation’s financial development.

That is a simple fact that no one can deny, since Hong Kong has been an international financial center for many years and has been playing a major role in the reform of the country’s financial system by providing know-how and experience in financial operations as well as policymaking and channeling of foreign investment; while Guangdong has been a pilot region in the nation’s reform and opening-up drive since it began 40 years ago, and Macao is also a special administrative region like Hong Kong, with abundant connections to the outside world.

The nine cities in the Pearl River Delta region, led by provincial capital Guangzhou and economic boomtown Shenzhen, are the heart of Guangdong Province. (SD-Agencies)