Talk:Guangzhou Voyage Tips and guide

This article was the Collaboration of the week between 24 Apr 2006 and 30 Apr 2006.

The Guangzhou article is getting quite long, and so it might good to split into districts. Anyone have sufficient knowledge of the city to undertake this? Have a look at Taipei as an example. (WT-en) WindHorse 09:09, 22 October 2006 (EDT)

For Guangzhou, I don't think dividing into districts makes sense, because they are more divided for administrative purposes. Dividing that way may inconvenient travelers. Most things listed on the page belong to 2 districts -- the two smaller districts, which are closely tied together. I don't know if anyone has a better idea of dividing. Maybe something like the old city and the new? --(WT-en) Jianhuang 10:55, 23 October 2006 (EDT)

I don't know. There are many ways to divide up a city that are convenient for travelers. If using districts isn't a good idea, then how about geographically - 'central district', 'north Guangzhou' and 'south Guangzhou' or perhaps into five categories: 'central' plus 'north-west', 'north-east', 'south west' and 'south east'. If the Taipei model doesn't work, then have a look at the London article, which uses a geographical demarcation or Singapore and Tokyo, which rely more on a cultural basis for the divisions or Swansea, which is simply divided into urban and rural districts. Brother, it's your hometown. I'll let you decide this one. I am quite familiar with Guangzhou, but unfortunately not enough to attempt this, so I bow to your greater wisdom. (WT-en) WindHorse 04:58, 24 October 2006 (EDT)

The geographical division sound good to me. - Central districts: Liwan, Yuexiu (2/3 of items on the page go here. This is the old Guangzhou, the area is relatively small compared to the whole city) - Other Northern districts: Tianhe, Huadu, and Baiyun. - Southern districts: Haizhu, Panyu, and Nansha. The later two have plenty of room to grow as rapid developments are done to these areas, while Liwan and Yuexiu are pretty mature. --(WT-en) Jianhuang 10:59, 24 October 2006 (EDT)

Sounds good. Again take a look at the Taipei and Tokyo articles for reference. In the Taipei article, the information on the down town is included in the main article, and the suburbs are broken off into seperate pages. On the Tokyo article, the main article only offers general information, and all areas have a seperate pages. See which of these models (or others) you think best suits Guangzhou, and then set up in that way. Sorry, I cannot help too much with this, but I really have no idea in which areas the streets, restaurants or hotels are located. Thanks (WT-en) WindHorse 21:07, 24 October 2006 (EDT)

I can take on the project between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Anyone else has any opinion about splitting the page? --(WT-en) Jianhuang 16:26, 30 October 2006 (EST)

I think that the splitting should be done really carefully. There are (too) many cities where the article has been splitted across several pages, but then some of the pages contain only a couple of objects. IMO there's no point in creating a separate page for a district, if it has only 1 sleep, 1 eat and 1 do item - it will just make the navigation more difficult. What comes to GZ, I don't know the city well enough in order to help with the splitting. Most of the action seems to be centered around the old Liwan district and the blocks around Tianhe sports centrum. -- (WT-en) Trsqr 16:22, 1 November 2006 (EST)

Hi Trsqr - good point, Jianhuang also mentioned that it wouldn't be advantageous to divide Guangzhou up along political district lines, but rather geographically, such as North Guangzhou, South Guangzhou etc. These designations will include several smaller polital districts so, in that way, we should avoid the problems you mentioned. Jianhuang is from Guangzhou, so I think he'll have good idea how to undertake this. But, anyway, it is good to be reminded of the points you raise and to factor them in before the carve up begins. (WT-en) WindHorse 21:26, 1 November 2006 (EST)

I still don't know the best way to do this. My knowledge wouldn't compensate how the changes may inconvenient readers. Guangzhou is still a place where travellers spent quite little time in. Most of the action are about 30 min from each other -- a fairly small metro area. So if anyone has further inputs, let us know. (WT-en) Jianhuang 14:55, 1 December 2006 (EST)

This article covers information mostly pertaining to Tianhe, Yuexiu and Liwan. Starting the cut up with these three might be a good idea. See, Buy, Eat, Sleep and Drink sections would be relevant for the split. The remaining content looks generic enough to stay where it is.

How about establishing the main article to cover the down town districts of Liwan, Xuexiu, Tanhe, Haizhu and Huangpu and then split of two other districts categorized as 'northern districts', consisting of Luogang, Baiyun and Hwadu and 'southern districts,' covering the districts of Panyu and Nansha. The Taipei article uses a similar model, except that the northern and southern districts have their own individual articles - which can also be done in Guangzhou's case if you believe that the districts have enough attractions and accommodation to warrant their own articles. Otherwise, just combine and categorize them as northern and southern districts for the time being. They can always be split later if deemed necessary. As you state, most tourists only spend a short time in Guangzhou, but business people often stay longer, and they also require information. (WT-en) WindHorse 10:41, 2 December 2006 (EST)

Taipei has a rather small city centre with way too many districts. Individually, only a few have enough information to justify "districtification", so it does make sense to lump all those bits together. Information is also limited for outer districts like Neihu. GZ on the other hand has big enough districts to do the split comfortably. The main article size would remain largely unchanged if we still have Liwan, Yuexiu and Tianhe stuff in it. (who wrote this part?) Ans: (WT-en) Lai.jack 01:42, 8 December 2006 (EST)

I think I just saw the light -- Being an ex-local, I can see how one considers the city center (Locals call it 广州市区). Within this area, the city buses operate efficiently (2 yuan); taxi is easy to take and there are plenty of them; You can go from one point to another within 30 minutes (one hour max); Traffic is usually heavy. This consists of Liwan, Haizhu, Western Tianhe, Southern Baiyun. Outside of that area, you see buses cost a little more, usually 4 yuan +; taxi usually costs much more because they add 50% to the total when you hit 30km; travel options are more limited; your trip takes > 1 hour. This consists of Outer Tianhe, Greater Baiyun, Huadu, Huangpu, Panyu, and Nangang. What do you think? (WT-en) Jianhuang 14:58, 6 December 2006 (EST)

Sounds good. Now all you need to do is decide whether you want the main article to just cover general information and split off all districts as in the Singapore model, or use the main article for the 市区 information and just spit off the 市区外 districts as in the Taipei model. Good luck (WT-en) WindHorse 22:30, 6 December 2006 (EST)

I have been creating a huge map of Guangzhou in Inkscape. I don't know all the street names though and I cannot place all the sights, hotels and restaurants on the map. Can anyone help me in this? Also if you can spot some errors in the map, I'd be happy to correct them.

-- (WT-en) Trsqr 16:00, 1 November 2006 (EST)

I added the maps of the central Guangzhou now. I was not able to place all the mentioned places on the map and there might be still some errors, but otherwise I'm quite happy with the outcome. If you spot any errors, you can correct them by yourself (the SVG file has been uploaded also) or just drop me a line - I will be happy to make the corrections. -- (WT-en) Trsqr 05:52, 4 November 2006 (EST)

They look great - and no errors as far as I can see. Thanks for your efforts. The maps really enhance the quailty of the article. (WT-en) WindHorse 07:09, 4 November 2006 (EST)

Uploaded new versions of the maps. I got mail from a fellow Wikivoyage user, who made a few good corrections and new additions. -- (WT-en) Trsqr 05:32, 5 November 2006 (EST)

There are two images that might be problematic, what should we do with these?

http://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Image:Guangzhou_map.png has been uploaded without license and as Jpatokal pointed out in the Destination of the Month discussion, http://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Image:Guangzhou-GipsyKing.jpg might be violating a copyright and should probably go. There is a district map that I drew earlier (http://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Image:Guangzhou_district_map.png), but what comes to the bar pic, I don't have any suggestion for replacement.

I uploaded both. (1) Guangzhou map originated from ZH Wikipedia. I adjusted the size and inserted everything you see in English. (2) I snapped this. It shows paid entertainers engaged in a public performance, which in my opinion constitutes less of a privacy invasion than pictures showing people going about their normal daily lives. ;-)

okay pics are way too big so minimize them its blocking print --(WT-en) Lone.guner 18:57, 29 January 2008 (EST)

This is a pretty minor problem. I don't know how to correct it. Recently I have added some bars into the drink section but I don't know how to separate the drink section from the eat section. It would also be nice to see a link placed at the top right of the page to take you directly to the drink section. Otherwise people may miss it all together.

There was a broken listing (opening <eat> without a closing </eat>) that was messing up the formatting -- the table of contents works again. (WT-en) Jpatokal 01:36, 2 July 2008 (EDT)

• Does anyone know if Noxxi has reopened? I'm thinking of deleting it.

I believe many of the pics violate Project:Image policy, especially the one of the Gipsy Bar dancing girls Project:Welcome. There are also several other shots that show people's faces pretty predominately and these should also be up for a "delete discussion" as well. It's OK to have pics with people in them, but are these the best to be found? (WT-en) Zepppep 11:25, 28 October 2009 (EDT)

Don't be absurd. The Gipsy King Bar picture is one of a DANCE PERFORMANCE, and obviously, in any such gig, there are people involved. If we had to remove every picture with a human face in it, there would be no street/life pictures in Wikivoyage at all. (WT-en) Lai.jack 13:40, 30 October 2009 (EDT)

My chinese is poor but in the food section where it says how to ask for leftovers to be taken away should it be dai bao (pronounced die bow) as opposed to da bao? I assume it should be dai as in bag dai. I don't know what da could mean in this context...

打包 dǎ​bāo​ is correct, but thank you for considering this, --(WT-en) ClausHansen 03:04, 2 August 2010 (EDT)

Yes. It is da bao. (WT-en) Pashley 04:05, 2 August 2010 (EDT)

The front image does not represent Guangzhou at all, not even close. Anyone has a better picture? I can take some -- there are many options, such as Pearl River with the Guangzhou Tower, Citic Plaza, etc. -(WT-en) Jianhuang 00:27, 6 September 2011 (EDT)

Would be great if you could feature some of your pictures. Or try to get some freely licensed pictures from Flickr or Wikimedia Commons. --(WT-en) globe-trotter 12:34, 7 September 2011 (EDT)

The eat section was tagged for style (See the Eat section). I'd like to improve it, but don't know what else needs to be done. I have looked up the style manual and updated what I could. Any suggestion would be great! (WT-en) Jianhuang 19:59, 18 October 2011 (EDT)

I noticed Guangzhou has a detailed timetable for "Hong Kong - Guangzhou" and it notes that it is current as of October 2011.

Should Wikivoyage have such detailed timetables? My concern is that A) the timetable will change (assuming it already hasn't) and B) there appears to be no one actively maintaining this article since the Wikivoyage migration. Is it safer to simply mention that the train route exists, possibly with a link to an official website? Andrewssi2 (talk) 13:23, 25 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

I believe typical practice in the past has always been to remove such tables for trains/flights, for the very reason you stated. Texugo (talk) 13:34, 25 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

Thanks, I will remove. I was actually thinking I may need to take that train soon, and that I just would not use a possibly outdated timetable. Andrewssi2 (talk) 13:40, 25 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

I would like to retract a previous comment. This article has in fact been updated by user Pashley and a few others during this year. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 14:23, 25 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

I think avoiding timetables, except perhaps for some cases where it is simple and general like "Overnight buses to Xiamen leave between 8 and 11 in the evening", should be a general rule. In some cases, maps as well; see Talk:Shanghai#Metro_pic for example. Pashley (talk) 14:39, 25 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

True, the Shanghai metro expands every few month! Also it is hard to find 'open source' metro maps that we can legally upload to Wikimedia. On the other hand, I would always like to have a metro map readily available to me whether it be London or Shanghai, even if slightly outdated. Andrewssi2 (talk) 14:55, 25 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

I removed the following listings because, like a previous discusion foe Beijing they were higher education insitutions that are not relevant for the traveler. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 06:09, 24 May 2014 (UTC)Reply

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

• South China Agricultural University (华南农业大学 hua nan nong ye da xue) Take Guangzhou Metro Line 3, Wushan Station.
• Being the largest university in Guangdong by size, SCAU's history can be traced back to 1909. Over nearly a hundred years, SCAU has grown into a multi-disciplinary, comprehensive university with agriculture, engineering, liberal arts, basic sciences, economics, management, law, education, history and philosophy. It is now adopting a multi-level and multi-approach schooling system and intends to develop into an advanced multi-disciplinary agricultural institute with distinctive tropical and subtropical features. The university takes agricultural sciences as its priority and life sciences as its highlight. At SCAU, undergraduate and graduate programs are developing concurrently, with teaching and research as the two central tasks. The UNDP, FAO and WFC are held here. Besides, the Guangdong Dog Pageant is held here annually.

• Sun Yat-Sen University (中山大学 Zhōng-shān-dà-xué), (Metro 2 Sun Yat-Sen University Station - Exit A) This is the most famous university in Guangzhou and Southern China. It was founded by Sun Yat-sen, the founder of the Republic of China. The school now has three campuses. The old campus is green and beautiful, and has many historical sites. The north gate has a great river view.

• Southern Medical University (南方医科大学）, formerly known as First Military Medical University, affiliated to the People's Liberation Army, was founded in 1951. It became one of the national key universities in 1979. It came under the jurisdiction of Guangdong Province in 2004 and was renamed Southern Medical University. It is located at the foot of picturesque Baiyun Mountain. The main campus, together with its south campus in the southern suburb of Guangzhou, covers an area of nearly one million square meters. The university has been awarded the first-class garden-like university, for rows of green trees nourish and bouquets of flowers blossom on the campuses all through a year.

• South China University of Technology (华南理工大学 Huánán-Lǐgōng-Dàxué), it was established in 1952, through a reorganization process that unified the engineering schools and departments of major universities in Southern China, including the former Zhongshan University, Lingnan University, South China Joint University, and 4 others. In 1960, it was selected as one of 33 National Key Universities, under the direct administration of the Chinese Ministry of Education. The University was renamed as South China University of Technology in 1988.

• South China Normal University (华南师范大学 Huá-nán-shī-fàn-dà-xué) [1] is a comprehensive university in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, in the People'Republic of China. The university is featured distinctively by both teaching and research, consisting of diverse branches of learning such as philosophy, economics, law, education, literature, history, science, technology, and management. There is also an elementary school in this university.

• Guangdong University of Foreign Studies (广东外语外贸大学 Guǎng-dōng-Wài-yǔ-Wài-mào-Dà-xué) is a higher education institution in Guangzhou, Guangdong, China. The university provides research and higher education in several international studies.

This is a really long article, and there has been an slight attempt to districtify with Panyu and Zengcheng. Does anyone have sufficiently close enough knowledge to work this article into districts? Andrewssi2 (talk) 06:14, 24 May 2014 (UTC)Reply

Same question over 3 years later. It looks like districting was barely begun. Anyone know this city well enough to help? Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:02, 5 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

My suggestion is a division into "old", "new" and "suburbs". Panyu-Nansha are usually together. Zengcheng and Conghua are not usually considered part of Guangzhou by locals and may therefore have their separate pages.

The "Old" part could be Liwan north of Pearl river, Yuexiu, and NW Haizhu. The "new" part could be NE Haizhu and Tianhe. The "suburb" part could be S Haizhu, Liwan south of Pearl river, Baiyun and Huangpu.

Haizhu is a bit hard to work on - I'll upload a map later - also my rationale for such division. Elcancn (talk) 10:09, 19 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

I removed the following section because all the listings were just names with a metro station. Not sure how anyone can find them, or know what they specifically offer. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 23:47, 1 June 2014 (UTC)Reply

• Bosphorus Turkish Restaurants, Xiao Bei (line 5). 

• Ottoman, Zoo (line 5). 

• Sultan, TaoJin (line 5). 

• İstanbul, Xiao Bei (line 5). 

• Coffee Time, Chen Clan Academy (ChenJiaci - line 1). 

• Shami House, close to Bosphorus Turkish Restaurants. 

• Grand House, SanYuanli (line 2). 

I propose that the archaic Western name for the city of Guangzhou—Canton—be mentioned briefly in the introduction for historical context. However, for the sake of clarity and consistency, the modern English name Guangzhou should be used throughout the remainder of the article. In contemporary English usage, Canton is no longer employed to refer to the city itself, though Cantonese remains the standard term for the language, people, and cuisine associated with the province, of which Guangzhou is the capital.Thank you - SingyeDzong

that means, no change in the article is needed as of this moment. Ibaman (talk) 17:19, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

This is a relatively minor issue, but I would encourage you to take a moment before making abrupt edits and reverts. This isn't the first time this has happened and while your work on WikiVoyage is appreciated, you need to understand this is a community. "Guangzhou" is indeed the correct and widely accepted name for the city, and while using "Canton" as an alternative isn't entirely incorrect — it’s just outdated. Even so, the original version wasn't egregious enough to warrant an immediate change based on personal preference.In cases like this, where the matter is minor and subjective, it's better to prioritize community consensus and harmony over individual interpretation. I'm not going to revert your change, even though all native English speakers familiar with the city would state that "Guangzhou" the correct term.If we start prioritizing archaic names on the basis of preference, we might as well start referring to London as "Londinium" or peppering the New York City article with references to "New Amsterdam." Let's try to keep the focus on clarity and consistency for readers. SingyeDzong (talk) 05:04, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

As I stated at User talk:Ibaman, it's fine to use Canton in the lede and the "History" subsection of "Understand", but I fail to see why we would use it in a section like "Districts" and would support using only Guangzhou in that section. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:45, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Is "Canton" completely archaic? When I lived in China everyone either Chinese or foreign used "Guangzhou", but the food & language are called "Cantonese", the airport code is CAN & the big trade show is the Canton Fair.

Talking to someone who has not travelled in Asia, I'd be inclined to use "Canton" because that seems more likely to be understood. Pashley (talk) 15:38, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

we're talking travel guide logic here. If you type "Constantinople" in the search box, it will redirect to Istanbul/Historical Peninsula. "Bombay" redirects to Mumbai. It doesn't hurt to mention historic names where historically appropriate IMHO, in fact it's useful to the traveller and stylistically useful to avoid boring repetition. WV:Tone#Don't assume the reader is an idiot: we're not writing to 6-year-olds that need extreme clarity in simple vocabulary and can't understand metaphors and metonyms. Ibaman (talk)

No-one is arguing for the deletion of useful redirects. I don't see what this has to do with supposedly assuming the reader is an idiot, and I think that appealing to that argument is an attempt to shut down discussion. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:39, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

acknowledged, agreed. As for Pashley's question, I can testify that, in my native Brazilian Portuguese, whereas "Pequim" has fallen into disuse, "Cantão" has not. I also tend to care a lot about airport codes, too, and all of that tends to influence my thinking. Ibaman (talk) 23:42, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I wouldn't base the use of names for cities on airport codes. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:08, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Ibraman: Did you notice that the fact Guangzhou was formerly known as Canton in the West is already clearly stated in the opening lines? That point has been made—job done. Of course, we could also mention that London was once Londinium, New York City was New Amsterdam, and Mumbai was Bombay. No one disputes these historical names.

But is it really helpful to keep inserting archaic terms throughout the text? What purpose does that serve, other than to muddy the narrative? If we go down that path, should we also start randomly referring to Chennai as Madras, Istanbul as Constantinople, or NYC as New Amsterdam in unrelated contexts? It risks confusing readers rather than enlightening them.

Additionally, I’d like to raise a concern about the way edits are being handled. When changes are made abruptly — especially when they aren’t strictly necessary—it can discourage new contributors. Of course, correcting factual inaccuracies is important, but in cases like this, where the contributor’s wording was perfectly reasonable, it’s worth considering the broader impact.

Prioritizing harmony and fostering a sense of community cohesion should be part of our editorial approach. A respectful and collaborative attitude helps build trust and encourages continued participation, which is vital for the health of the WV community. SingyeDzong (talk) 05:41, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

As you know, I generally agree with you. However, I could see stating that such-and-such district in Kolkata was the heart of colonial Calcutta, and the difference between former place names in India or Constantinople and Canton is that those cities were actually called by those names locally, and in India, many former names are often still used unofficially, whereas Canton - again, correct me if I'm wrong - is a name that I believe was never used in any Chinese dialect. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:37, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Correct. Canton, like Peking, was a Western colonial invention — as, actually, was Calcutta. But unlike the Indian city, neither Canton nor Peking were adopted by natives. I agree that in historical contexts, it's fine to use a city's former name (for example, when referring to specific eras or regions). However, that wasn’t the case here.

In truth, this is a relatively minor issue. What I'm more concerned about is Ibaman’s abrupt editing style. There’s no doubt his contributions to the site are substantial and his intentions good — far outweighing my own modest and infrequent involvement — but he often jumps in and rewrites or removes new contributors' work, even when it’s totally unnecessary. That kind of approach creates friction and, worse, discourages newcomers from participating in the community. SingyeDzong (talk) 08:51, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Per w:Names of Beijing, Peking comes from the Portuguese Pequim, used by Francis Xavier in 1552, but standard Wade-Giles transliteration of the Mandarin name of the city as capital of China would have been Peiching, which is not so different. The city was transliterated as Peiping when Nanjing was the capital during the Republic of China period, but in point of fact, the pronunciation of these names in Mandarin was always Beijing or Beiping.

As for Canton, per w:Guangzhou:

The English name "Canton" derived from Portuguese Cidade de Cantão, a blend of dialectal pronunciations of "Guangdong" (e.g., Cantonese Gwong2-dung1). Although it originally and chiefly applied to the walled city, it was occasionally conflated with Guangdong by some authors. It was adopted as the Postal Map Romanization of Guangzhou, and remained the official name until its name change to "Guangzhou". As an adjective, it is still used in describing the people, language, cuisine and culture of Guangzhou and the surrounding Liangguang region. The 19th-century name was "Kwang-chow foo".

So both Peking and Canton come from Portuguese, but Canton is a more distant echo of Chinese pronunciations. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:22, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Well researched. Thank you for taking the time and effort to do so... Just to add one point: 'Kwang-chow' sounds more like the Cantonese pronunciation of the Chinese characters, 广州 - which roughly translates as 'broad plain' - than the mandarin rendering. SingyeDzong (talk) 08:53, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply