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Is the name Canton better known than Guangzhou?

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The English-language term "Canton" as been around for centuries longer than the transliterations of "Guangdong" province and "Guangzhou" city. read more

Though Canton and Guangzhou refer to the same city, Canton is much better known at least in the US, because there are at least 28 cities/townships in United States that are named after Canton, the largest port by the west Pacific before 1840. read more

Nonetheless, other languages such as Hakka (客家话) also have large speaker populations in the province. As "Cantonese" is a cultural concept and "Canton" is where the word derives from, "Canton" is a narrower geographical concept than "Guangdong". It refers to the origin of Cantonese culture, that is, Guangzhou. read more

To me, "known historically as Canton" is more informative than "formerly romanized as Canton" because 1/ It's still used in modern romanisation. In addition to the places/events Heimstern and I gave, the Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport uses the IATA code CAN for the city. read more

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