This month Dongguan, in the heart of the Pearl River Delta economic zone of south China, is transformed from a city of migrants into a city of ghosts.

The Chinese New Year holiday marks the start of the biggest annual human migration on the planet. During the Spring Festival travel rush – or Chunyun in Mandarin – which runs from 1 February to 12 March 2018, it’s estimated that Chinese returning to their home towns for family reunions will make 2.98 billion trips. According to China’s National Development and Reform Commission, in total, 2.48 billion road trips, 390 million rail trips, 65 million air trips and 46 million boat trips are expected to be made over the 40-day period. Nowhere is this large-scale migration likely to be more evident than in Dongguan, an industrial city in central Guangdong province.

Dongguan is sometimes called “the world’s factory” due to its prosperous manufacturing industry, and some 75% of its 8.34m population are migrant workers who return home during the festive period, leaving the city nearly deserted. According to Qihoo 360 Technology, a big data and software giant, last year Dongguan was the country’s most empty city during the holiday. The company’s “ghost city index”, compiled by tracking the locations of its users during the Chinese New Year travel rush, saw Dongguan ranked first, as almost 70% of its population left town during the holiday.

Workers at Dongguan’s Huajian shoe factory. Photograph: Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images

From the mid-1980s, Dongguan was China’s leading export and manufacturing base, a hothouse for churning out cheap clothes, toys and shoes bearing the ubiquitous “Made in China” label. The city was hit hard when exports dried up in the wake of the global financial crisis in 2008, and suffered a slump. Today, with the help of economic input from various levels of government, it is transitioning into a smart manufacturing base focused on producing hi-tech robotics and automated equipment, in the hope that the boom times will return.

Dongguan in numbers

660,000 sq metres – the size of the shopping area at the New South China Mall, the world’s largest shopping mall by leasable area.

One in five – smartphones in the world are made in Dongguan.

700,000 – people living in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan who trace their origins to Dongguan.

28 – towns are under Dongguan’s jurisdiction.

10% – of the city’s population estimated to work in the sex trade.

75% – of the population who are migrant workers. Of the city’s 8.34 million people, only 1.91 million are registered as residents.

New South China Mall – the world’s biggest shopping mall. Photograph: Alamy

History in 100 words

Though the area is thought to have been inhabited as early as 5,000 years ago, Dongguan first rose to prominence in 1839 when Chinese official Lin Zexu ordered the incineration of a considerable quantity of opium in the town of Humen. This triggered Britain to declare war on China, resulting in the first opium war. China’s “century of humiliation” followed, with subjugation to foreign powers, the collapse of the Qing Dynasty, a civil war and the eventual Communist party victory in 1949. In 1978, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping began an economic reform, called the “Open Door Policy”, aimed at raising rates of foreign investment and growth. Dongguan was chosen as a test bed. Designated a city in 1985 and fuelled by waves of foreign investment, it eventually became China’s leading export and manufacturing base. Between 2003 and 2006, the city’s economy grew in excess of 19.5% annually, the fastest in the country. But since the global financial crash of 2008, rising labour costs and competition from other markets in the region have left Dongguan’s once-booming manufacturing industry seeking to reinvent itself.



Dongguan in sound and vision

The 2016 documentary The 18-Year-Old Assembly Line, directed by Luojunnan Yin, is a stark look at life inside some of Dongguan’s factories. It captures the post-90s phenomenon in China of young people leaving the small towns they grew up in to move to the city to assemble the world’s goods in near-sweatshop conditions.

Though it is best known as an industrial city, Dongguan is also considered one of the homes of Cantonese culture, and particularly Cantonese opera. The late Ho Fei-Fan, born in Dongguan in 1919, was one of the form’s biggest stars following the success of his work The Romantic Monk.

How liveable is Dongguan?

While the reality for the average factory worker is sleeping in a dorm in a condensed industrial district just outside the city centre, there is life beyond the factory walls. “It’s vast, both in size and population, but feels like a small town,” says local journalist and editor David Mark Arnold.

In contrast to its industrial image, Dongguan was recognised by the United Nations Environment Programme as an “international garden city” with 10 forest parks, five natural reserves, 13 wetland parks, 1,071 parks and squares and 923.5km of greenways.

It’s fast developing as a city of sports, arts and culture too. Dongguan is considered China’s “national basketball city”, as the only prefecture-level city with three professional basketball clubs. It shares Mission Hills Golf Club, recognised by Guinness World Records as the largest golf facility in the world, with neighbouring Shenzhen.

Dongguan boasts a number of different theatres, libraries and museums, making its cultural square in the city centre the most concentrated in all of China. The Dongguan Yulan theatre, a striking multipurpose venue shaped like an unfolding lotus petal, is one of its landmark performing arts centres. Transport is quickly improving too, with a high-speed rail link connecting to Hong Kong and other cities in the Pearl River Delta expected to open later this year.

#VSCOcam#InstaSquarer#china#dongguan#YulanTheatre 中國東莞•玉蘭大劇院 A post shared by Hu (@kkesuper) on Apr 16, 2015 at 4:48pm PDT

Despite these efforts to make it a liveable city, Dongguan is a transient place for most. “Dongguan seems to be a stepping stone,” says Arnold. “In this way, the locals and foreigners aren’t so different. Many people from around the country and abroad find themselves moving to Dongguan in search of more money than could be earned back home. Some inevitably find themselves staying longer than imagined, and from what I understand, quality of life and diversity of entertainment is improving from 20 or even 10 years ago.”

Biggest urban risk

With almost 1m registered factories in Dongguan, air pollution can be a serious problem. Last year, levels of a harmful fine carcinogenic particulate called PM2.5 increased by 5.3% across the Guangdong region, which incorporates Dongguan. Reports of widespread smog and foul odours in the air are commonplace in the city.

But environmental authorities have been taking new measures to mitigate them. Last year, they began deploying drones fitted with high-end gas sensors that are able to hover over the city’s myriad factories and detect pollutants such as sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and PM2.5. As they hover 30ft above ground, the drones transmit real-time monitoring data and geographic coordinates, allowing inspectors to pinpoint where there are dangerous levels of pollutants so that law enforcement can sanction the perpetrators.

Key subculture

A population disparity has given rise to a polyamorous subculture in the city. There are 89 men for every 100 women, reports the Independent, which has resulted in “men having three or more girlfriends because there are so many women”. The shortage of men is said to have occurred as a result of Dongguan factory owners’ preference for female workers, who they consider “more reliable” than their male counterparts. Locals described the situation as “very normal”, even going as far to say “it would be too embarrassing for someone to have just one girlfriend”. According to Guangdong Women’s Rights and Information Service, women ignore the multiple partners issue because the arrangement is better than being lonely.

What’s next for the city?

A hi-tech rebirth. Local authorities view the production of robotics and automated equipment as the way to advance the city’s manufacturing sector. “Tremendous economic input from the government is seeing Dongguan transforming from an original equipment manufacturing centre into an advanced manufacturing centre,” says Lin Jiang, economics professor at Sun Yat-sen University’s Lingnan College.

Environmentally friendly LEDs light up a roadway in Dongguan. Photograph: Ryan Pyle/Corbis via Getty Images

According to a blueprint released last September, the Guangdong provincial government has plans to create a “Chinese Silicon Valley-style tech corridor” as a new economic driver for the region. They envision that Dongguan, alongside Guangzhou and Shenzhen, will be leading the country in science and technology by 2020.

Close zoom

Founded in 2005, HERE! Dongguan is the city’s free, independent English language magazine, and a lifesaver for English speakers in the city, providing a directory of local services and event listings, as well as features exploring all aspects of life in Dongguan.

Do you live in Dongguan? What key facts, figures and cultural highlights have we missed? Share your stories below

Follow Guardian Cities on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to join the discussion, and explore our archive here