Huangpu District, Guangzhou — Area Guide & Where to Stay

What are the main landmarks in Huangpu District?

The district's landmarks reach back centuries. On Changzhou Island stands the Whampoa Military Academy, founded in 1924 to train the officers of a revolutionary army, its white colonnades still facing the Pearl River. Older still is the Nanhai God Temple, raised in 594 to honour the god of the southern sea and marked as a starting point of the Maritime Silk Road, where merchants once prayed before long voyages from Huangpu Port.

Modern icons rise to the east. There Guangzhou Science City gathers research institutes and technology firms across a landscape of parks and low glass buildings that could not look less like the temple's timber halls.

What is the history of Huangpu District?

Huangpu grew up around water and trade. The Nanhai God Temple, built in 594, fixed the area as a ritual anchor for ships leaving the Pearl River delta, and Huangpu Port later became one of Guangzhou's principal gateways to the sea. War and revolution left their mark too.

In 1924 the Whampoa Military Academy opened on Changzhou Island, shaping a generation of Chinese officers. Much later the district turned toward industry and research, and in 2014 the neighbouring Luogang was merged into Huangpu, folding the sprawling development zones and the Science City into a single enlarged district that now stretches well inland from the river.

Where is Huangpu District?

Huangpu occupies eastern Guangzhou, wrapping the north bank of the Pearl River and reaching inland to enclose Changzhou Island and the hills around the Science City across some 480 square kilometres.