Bao'an County

[2] In the second year of the Zhide of Suzong under the Tang dynasty (757 AD), Dōngguān was renamed to Dōngguǎn (東莞; 东莞).

'Protector of the region') to protect the local population from robbers and vagabonds which increasingly infested the district.

[1] In 1573, the first year of the reign of Wanli of the Ming dynasty, Xin'an County (sometimes referred to as district) was established as a separate administrative division of Guangzhou Prefecture.

[2] According to the 1819 edition of the Gazetteer of Xin'an County, the population of Xin'an County was about 18,000 people in 1642, just prior to the collapse of the Ming dynasty, and the total population was about 4,000 by 1672, three years after the reoccupation of the area at the end of the Great Clearance.

[2] In 1953, Shenzhen replaced Nantou as the administrative centre, due to the increasing prominence of the town as the southern terminus of the Chinese section of the Kowloon–Canton Railway.

Map of San-On District, drawn from the observations made by the Italian missionary Simeone Volonteri , and published in 1866.
Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory , an unequal treaty signed between Qing China and the United Kingdom in 1898, shows that south of the Sham Chun River of Xin'an County was leased out to British government .