Its government is the first to have developed e-government informatization at the county level in China.

Establishment of Nanhai is traditionally attributed two brothers carrying their father's bowls in 1271.

They were fleeing south from the Mongols on a bamboo raft when a violent storm shipwrecked them and broke all the bowls.

The brothers settled down there and the position of the wreck is commemorated by a shrine.

Nanhai was designated by the central government as a pilot city for e-government and informatization in 2001.