China Meiguo

A few days ago I posted about plans in southern China to build the world's biggest megacity by merging 9 existing cities, including some already pretty large one such as Shenzhen and Guangzhou. It has since been reported that there is some doubt about exactly how serious these plans are. Apparently some government officials in the province of Guangdong have denied the plans to create the world's largest metropolis.

Instead, the Guangdong provincial government says it intends to promote further development within 3 economic circles, each of which includes 3 cities. I have also heard rumors that the Chinese government may ultimately want to merge Hong Kong (香港) with the neighboring city of Shenzhen. There is already a great deal of economic interdependence between these cities so this is not impossible although if it happens, it will likely be sometime after 2047 (since China promised to let Hong Kong remain self-governing for 50 years after its handover from Great Britain in 1997) . Regardless of of these stories is more accurate, it seems clear that there are at least plans to massively increase development in the region. Whether one megacity or 3 (or 4 including Hong Kong) neighboring (but somewhat smaller) megacities, growth in this region of China is guaranteed to be substantial.