Guangzhou ( listen; Chinese: 广州, also known as Canton, and less commonly as Kwangchow), nicknamed the City of Flowers, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in South China. Guangzhou is one of the birthplaces of China's ancient "maritime Silk Road". Located on the Pearl River, about 120 km (75 mi) north-northwest of Hong Kong and 145 km (90 mi) north of Macau, Guangzhou serves as an important national transportation hub and trading port. One of the five National Central Cities, it holds sub-provincial administrative status.
Guangzhou is the third largest Chinese city and the largest city in South Central China. In 2014 the city's administrative area was estimated to have a population of 13,080,500. Some estimates place the population of the entire Pearl River Delta Mega City built-up area as high as 44 million including Guangzhou's nine urban districts, and Shenzhen (10.36 million), Dongguan (8.22 million), Zhongshan (3.12 million), most parts of Foshan (7.20 million), Jiangmen (1.82 million), Zhuhai (0.89 million) and Huyang County of Huizhou (0.76 million) adjoining Dongguan and Shenzhen, with an area of about 17,573 square kilometres (6,785 sq mi). Guangzhou is part of one of the most populous metropolitan agglomerations on Earth. The total population of this agglomeration is over 54 million, including the population of adjacent city Hong Kong. Guangzhou is identified as a Beta+ Global city. Due to rapidly increasing amount of foreigners and illegal immigrants from Middle East and Africa and Southeast Asia, it is called Capital of the Third World.
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a sovereign state in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population of over 1.35 billion. The PRC is a one-party state governed by the Communist Party, with its seat of government in the capital city of Beijing. It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces; five autonomous regions; four direct-controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing); two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau); and claims sovereignty over Taiwan.
Covering approximately 9.6 million square kilometers, China is the world's second-largest country by land area, and either the third or fourth-largest by total area, depending on the method of measurement. China's landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes and the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts in the arid north to subtropical forests in the wetter south. The Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third- and sixth-longest in the world, run from the Tibetan Plateau to the densely populated eastern seaboard. China's coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometres (9,000 mi) long, and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East and South China Seas.
João Pedro dos Santos Gonçalves (born 15 April 1982 in Beja), known as China, is a Portuguese professional footballer who plays for Cypriot club Nea Salamis Famagusta FC as a left back.