By the 19th century, Xinning was already a source of migrant and emigrant workers, but a series of subsequent natural and political disasters in the area exacerbated the situation.

Aside from the disruption of the Sea Ban regulations (Haijin) themselves, their revocation led to an influx of northern settlers who began long-running feuds with the returning locals; this erupted into full-scale war in the 1850s and '60s.

[8] The 1842 Treaty of Nanking that ended the First Opium War opened China to greater foreign trade just before the California Gold Rush made the prospect of emigration to the United States appealing.

Many also served as contract workers abroad, as in Hawaii, Peru and Cuba and—most famously—for the Central Pacific half of America's Transcontinental Railroad, where the Chinese made up 80% of the company's workforce as they laid track over the mountains and deserts of the west.

[11] In 1914, the new Republican government renamed the area Taishan County to avoid confusion with other places named Xinning.

One quarter of the "Flying Tigers", a joint American and Chinese group of airmen who fought the Japanese before the U.S. entered the Second World War, hailed from Taishan.

[13] Taishan administers one subdistrict and 16 towns,[15] which in turn are subdivided into 313 administrative villages (村委会), and residential communities (社区委会).

[13] Taishan's township-level divisions are: Some of the city's natural villages include Annanjiangchao (安南江潮), Bihou (庇厚), Jilong, and Guanbuli (官步里).

[citation needed] Taishanese is a language of the Yue Chinese, a large group that includes, but is broader than, the Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong and Guangzhou.

[1] Taishan is nicknamed the "hometown of volleyball",[1] after the game was introduced to the city in 1915 by Lingnan University student Wu Xiumin (伍秀民).

Many secondary schools were built and financed by Chinese living in China's Special Administrative Regions, as well as various foreign countries, such as the United States, Canada, and Brazil.