Shunde District, also known as Shuntak, is a district of the city of Foshan, Guangdong province, located in the Pearl River Delta. It had a population of 2,464,784 as of the 2010 census. Once a traditional agricultural county, it has become one of the most affluent counties in Guangdong and mainland China. Since 2009 it has been administrated independently of Foshan city, answerable directly to the Guangdong provincial government. History According to archaeological discoveries, human settlements appeared during the Spring and Autumn period. In the third year of Jinghai era (1452 AD), after the Ming dynasty suppressed the rebellion led by Huang Xiao Yang (), Shunde county was formally established. Before that, this area was part of Nam Hoi county (Nanhai Xian) and Sun Hui county (Xinhui Xian). The people of Daliang subdistrict of Shunde have a long history of consuming water buffalo cheese and milk products (particularly double skin milk dessert), which is why the township had begun promoting itself as the “Township of Milk and Honey” Shunde was a center for the development of the mulberry and sericulture industry in Guangdong province during the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty. It was at this time that the Comb Sister culture emerged from Shunde in opposition to the strict patriarchal feudal system, allowing unmarried women to live financially independent with the social pressure of marriage lifted. After the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, the feudal system and the silk production industry collapsed, ending the local Comb Sister custom. The first outbreak of the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak was recorded in Shunde on 16 November 2002. Administration divisions Shunde was a county-level city until 8 December 2002, when it became a district of Foshan prefecture-level city. Shunde has direct jurisdiction over four subdistricts and six towns: Unique as a district of any prefecture-level city in China, Shunde has been granted a degree of prefecture-level administrative autonomy over certain matters, notably economic development, independent of Foshan city, and has been answerable directly to the Guangdong Provincial government since 2009. Climate Economy Situated in the fertile Pearl River Delta, its economy was once dominated by agriculture, fisheries and silk farming. Since the implementation of policies related to reform and openness began in 1978, the people of this area were given full control over their geographical position and culture. This has allowed Shunde to gradually develop into a modern industrial boomtown,