20 Cent    (sold for $42.0)

1911, China, Kwangtung. Silver 20 Cents Coin. Y-205 / LM-139. VF-XF!

Mint Period: 1909-1911
Condition: A nice VF-XF!
Region: Kwangtung Province
Reference: L&M-139, KM-205. R!
Denomination: 20 Cents (1/5th of a Dragon Dollar)
Diameter: 23mm
Material: Silver
Weight: 5.27gm

Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province. The provincial capital Guangzhou and economic hub Shenzhen are amongst the most populous and important cities in China.

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 1557.

In the 19th century, the opium traded through Guangzhou triggered the First Opium War, 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.

Guangdong was also the major port of exit for labourers to Southeast Asia and the West in the 19th century, 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 city of Taishan (Toisan in Cantonese), who speak a distinctive dialect related to Cantonese called Taishanese (or Toishanese).

During the 1850s, the Taiping Rebellion, whose leader Hong Xiuquan was born in Guangdong and received a pamphlet from a Protestant Christian missionary in Guangdong, became a widespread civil war in southern China. 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 also from Guangdong.

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