A special economic zone, it is located on the east bank of the Pearl River estuary on the central coast of Guangdong, bordering Hong Kong to the south, Dongguan to the north, Huizhou to the northeast, and Macau to the southwest.

In the early Ming era, Chinese sailors of a fleet would go to a Mazu temple in Chiwan (in present-day Nanshan District) to pray as they go to Nanyang (Southeast Asia).

Xin'an was briefly occupied by a British force under the command of Henry Arthur Blake, the governor of Hong Kong, for half a year in 1899.

[30] In 1953, four years after the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Bao'an County government decided to move to Shenzhen, since the town was closer to the KCR and had a larger economy than Nantou.

In January 1978, a Central Inspection Team sent by the State Council investigated and established the issue of creating a foreign trade port in Bao'an County.

On 23 January 1979, the Guangdong provincial administration and the district of Huiyang announced their proposal to rename Bao'an County to Shenzhen and was approved and put into effect by the State Council on March 5 of that year.

[40][41][42] On 26 August, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) approved the "Regulations of the Guangdong Special Economic Zone.

[53] On 1 July 2010 the State Council dissolved the "second line," and expanded the Shenzhen SEZ to include all districts, a five-fold increase over its pre-expansion size.

[54] On 26 August 2010, on the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the Shenzhen SEZ, the State Council approved the "Overall Development Plan for Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong Modern Service Industry Cooperation Zone.

The southern portion of Bao'an County became part of British Hong Kong after the Opium Wars, while the village of Shenzhen was on the border.

Lingdingyang and Pearl River to the west and Mirs Bay to the east and roughly 100 kilometres (62 mi) southeast of the provincial capital of Guangzhou.

[75] In November 2003, the Guangzhou People's Intermediate Court charged former Shenzhen Deputy Mayor Wang Ju with bribery and abuse of power and sentenced him to 20 years in prison.

[76] In June 2005, the Shenzhen People's Intermediate Court charged sentenced Luohu District Public Security Director An Huijun to 15 years in prison for accepting bribes.

[77] In May 2011, the Zhengzhou Intermediate Court sentenced former mayor Xu Zongheng to the death penalty with a two-year reprieve for accepting bribes up to US$5.4 million.

[87][88][89] On 15 January 2018, the State Council approved the removal of the barbed wire fence set up to mark the boundary of the SEZ.

[110] Shenzhen is part of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road that runs from the Chinese coast south to the tip of India via the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean, there to the Upper Adriatic region to the northern Italian hub of Trieste with its rail connections to Central Europe and the North Sea.

[177][178] The city is also home to tall buildings such as the Ping An Finance Centre,[179] KK100,[180] and the Shun Hing Square (also known as Di Wang Tower).

[190] "Smart retail", which uses technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data in production, circulation, and sales of consumer goods, has been growing popular within enterprises in Shenzhen.

[209] Prior to the establishment of Special Economic Zone, the indigenous local communities could be divided into Cantonese and Hakka speakers,[210] which were two cultural and linguistic sub-ethnic groups vernacular to Guangdong province.

[212] The influx of migrants from other parts of the country has drastically altered the city's linguistic landscape, as Shenzhen has undergone a language shift towards Mandarin, which was both promoted by the Chinese Central Government as a national lingua franca and natively spoken by most of the out-of-province immigrants and their descendants.

[213][214][215] However, in recent years multilingualism has been on the rise as descendants of immigrants of out-of-province Mandarin native speakers have begun to assimilate into the local culture through friends, television and other media.

[231][232][233] Chiwan, located in the Nanshan District, also has several historical buildings, such as the tomb to the last emperor of the Southern Song, Zhao Bing and Tianhou Temple which was built by Zheng He as an offering to Mazu to protect the Ming treasure fleet.

[302][303]Shenzhen is connected with Hong Kong (city and airport), Zhuhai and Macau through ferries that leave from and arrive at the Shekou Cruise Center.

[308] Shenzhen is busiest in China when it comes to border crossings, with people entering and exiting the country through the city and Hong Kong reaching 239 million in 2015.

[312] In 2003 the municipal government announced plans to turned Shenzhen into a cultural city by promoting design, animation, and library construction.

[317][318] As a result of these developments, Shenzhen was awarded by UNESCO the title of "United Nations Design Capital" and was accepted entry into the Creative Cities Network on 7 December 2008.

[347][348] One of the most significant sporting events unique to Shenzhen is RoboMaster, an annual intercollegiate robot competition founded and hosted by DJI based on autonomous moving target shooting.

From the observation deck, there is a view of the Shenzhen skyline as well as Hong Kong and the surrounding bay, and on the next peak there is a transmission tower of a local television station.

[359] Swiss environmental technology company IQAir attributed most of the pollution in Shenzhen to stem from the engineering industry, continued use of coal, and traffic.

5The claimed province of Taiwan no longer have any internal division announced by Ministry of Civil Affairs of PRC, due to lack of actual jurisdiction.