Kwangchow-wan at the 1906 Exposition Coloniale, Marseille

Posted: January 17th, 2019 | No Comments »

I’ve always been interested in the oft-forgotten French treaty port of Kwangchow-wan (now Guangzhouwan) in Guangdong province. It wasn’t very large and was never home to more than 200,000 people but did have a sort of capital – Fort Bayard and some French institutions – the Governor’s house, some catholic missionaires, a Sino-French school etc. Japan occupied the territory in 1943 as part of its wider takeover of all French Indo-China.

What recently interested me was discovering that Kwangchow-wan had a pavilion at the 1906 Exposition Coloniale in Marseille.

The Kwangchow-wan pavilion (below) was close to the other pavilions of Indo-China – Laos, Cambodia, etc…Compared to the other exhibits Kwangshow-wan’s was quite small…but still in attendance. Today the city – either as Kwangchow-wan or Guangzhouwan is pretty much forgotten – a backwater now as its was then.

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