Kaiping (), alternately romanized in Cantonese as Hoiping, is a county-level city in Guangdong Province, China. It is located ín the western section of the Pearl River Delta and administered as part of the prefecture-level city of Jiangmen. The surrounding area, especially Sze Yup (), is the ancestral homeland of many overseas Chinese, particularly in the United States. Kaiping has a population of 688,242 as of 2017 and an area of . The locals speak a variant of the Sze Yup dialect]]. History During the Northern Song dynasty (960–1127), Kaiping was under the administration of Xin'an county () Under the Qing (1649), made up part of the commandery of Shiuhing (Zhaoqing). It was promoted to county-level city status in 1993. Administration Administratively, Kaiping is administered as part of the prefecture-level city of Jiangmen. Geography Kaiping's city centre is located on the Tanjiang River, away from Guangzhou, on the edge of the county Kaiping west of the Pearl River Delta. Kaiping consists of broken terrain, mostly either rocky or swampy, with only a third of the land arable. The county is shaped like a giant question mark (see map, in pink) and includes rural areas as well as three port cities: Changsha, Xinchang, and Dihai. Notable people Wing-tsit Chan: Chinese American scholar Ed Chau: member of the California State Assembly George Chow: member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia Yun Gee: Chinese American artist Víctor Joy Way: Chinese Peruvian politician Betty Kwan Chinn: Chinese American philanthropist Lee Quo-wei (1918–2013): former Hong Kong banker Liang Xiang: former Governor of Hainan Betty Ong: American flight attendant aboard American Airlines Flight 11 Jean Quan: former mayor of Oakland, California Bing Thom: Chinese Canadian architect and urban designer Szeto Wah (1931–2011): Hong Kong politician Szutu, Chiu: scholar, his publishing included inter generation of Chinese new zealanders,the biography of architecet Ron Fong Delbert E. Wong: Los Angeles County jurist who was the first judge in the continental United States of Chinese descent Ken Hom: Chinese-American chef, BBC TV presenter, and author Sights Kaiping Diaolou Kaiping Diaolous () are fortified multi-storey towers constructed in the village countryside of mainly the Kaiping area. They were built from the early Qing Dynasty to the early 20th century, reaching a peak in the 1920s and 1930s, with the financial aid of overseas Chinese, when there were more than three thousand of these structures. Today, approximately 1,800 diaolou are still