Shantou is a city of 4,971,000 permanent inhabitants (as at end 2006) in coastal eastern Guangdong Province, China, occupying an area of 2,064 sq. km. With its immediately surrounding cities of Jieyang and Chaozhou, the metropolitan region - known as Chaoshan - covers an area of 10,404 sq.km. and had a permanent population of 13,139,800 at the end of 2006.
Shantou, a city significant in 19th-century Chinese history as one of the treaty ports established for Western trade and contact, was one of the original Special Economic Zones of the People's Republic of China established in the 1980s, but failed to blossom like other cities such as Shenzhen, Xiamen and Zhuhai. However, it remains as East Guangdong's economic centre, and is home to one of Guangdong's most prestigious uinversities, Shantou University.
