Qujiang Maba Men were found living here as early as 129 000 years ago, who turned over the first page of the Guangdong social history as the earliest human beings ever found here. As the legend goes, the ethnic Yue people resided here in ancient times. That is why Guangdong is also called Yue for short in Chinese.

Guangdong Province has a 2200-year-long history with a long-established administrative status in China. But social advancement had been much slower than Eastern and Northern China until the Song Dynasty, and then in the Ming Dynasty, Guangdong kept up with the Yangtze and the Yellow River valleys. Guangdong began stepping into the rank of advanced provinces afterwards.

Since the 16th century, Guangdong has had extensive trade links with the rest of the world. European merchants coming northwards via the Straits of Malacca and the South China Sea, particularly the Portuguese and British, traded extensively through Guangzhou. Macau, on the southern coast of Guangdong, was the first European settlement in China since 1557. It was the opium trade through Guangzhou that triggered the Opium Wars, opening an era of foreign incursion and intervention in China. In addition to Macau, which was then a Portuguese colony, Hong Kong was ceded to the British, and Kwang-Chou-Wan to the French.

In the 19th century, Guangdong was also the major port of exit for labourers to Southeast Asia and the West, i.e. United States and Canada. As a result, many overseas Chinese communities have their origins in Guangdong. The Cantonese language therefore has proportionately more speakers among overseas Chinese people than mainland Chinese. In the US, there is a large number of Chinese who are descendants of immigrants from the otherwise unremarkable Guangdong region of Taishan (Toisan in Cantonese), who speak a distinctive dialect of Cantonese called Taishanese (or Toishanese).

During the 1850s, the first revolt of the Taiping Rebellion by the Hakka people took place in Guangdong. Because of direct contact with the West, Guangdong was the center of anti-Manchu and anti-imperialist activity. The generally acknowledged founder of modern China, Sun Yat-Sen, was from Guangdong.

During the early 1920s of the Republic of China, Guangdong was the staging area for Kuomintang (KMT) to prepare for the Northern Expedition, an effort to bring the various warlords of China back under the central government. Whampoa Military Academy was built near Guangzhou to train military commanders.

In recent years, the province has seen extremely rapid economic growth, aided in part by its close trading links with Hong Kong, which borders it. It is now the province with the highest gross domestic product in China.

Cantonese cuisine includes almost all edible food in addition to the usual items such as pork, beef and chicken. These include snakes, snails, insects and worms.

There are a wide variety of dishes made from meats, poultry, fish, seafood, and vegetables for your pick. Chicken is a celebrity food among Cantonese eaters. A single chicken can be used to prepare several dishes. Chicken blood is cooked and solidified for soup, and its liver is used in a wonderful delicacy called Golden Coin Chicken. The livers are skewered between pieces of pork fat and red-roasted until the fat becomes crispy, and the liver soft and succulent. This specialty is then eaten with wafers or orange-flavored bread.

Seafood is the next best delicacy in Cantonese cuisine. Some of the popular dishes include fresh-steamed fish with ginger and onion topped with a dash of soy sauce and sesame oil, prawns and crabs cooked or steamed in black-bean sauce, and shark's fin soup. Cantonese barbecuing methods are unsurpassed.

There are specialty foods that are only served during particular seasons. In winter, a traditional winter dish would be cooked snake. Dog meat is also a winter dish. 'Monk Jumping Over the Wall' is the name for a dish made from a blend of abalone, chicken, ham, mushroom, and herbs that are so irresistible that monks are said to break their vows of vegetarianism if its fragrance is within smelling distance.

Dim sum is, without a doubt, a trademark food in Cantonese cuisine. It is usually consumed in the mornings and afternoons. Dim sum is a delectable palate of little snacks, which come in wicker baskets that are placed on trolleys, and pushed around by waiters or waitresses. Diners have the opportunity to choose the baskets of their choice from the trolley when it reaches the table.