Ersha Island is also home to the Guangdong Museum of Art and the Xinghai Concert Hall.

It was a semi-circular fort of stone masonry mounting 35 guns and designed to command the passage on both sides.

[1][2] During the First Opium War (1839–42), British forces took possession of the fort before capturing Canton (Guangzhou) in March 1841.

[4] At the start of the Second Opium War (1856–60), the British captured these strategic locations with only slight opposition in the Battle of Canton on 23 October 1856.

[6] Previously the École Française Internationale de Canton, the French international school of Guangzhou, was located at the GoldArch Riverdale[note 1] development on Ersha Island.