Today, I’m translating a recent update from the Shenzhen Government online–Shenzhen administrative divisions. For those interested in who belongs where, it is an amazingly useful collection of maps. It also introduces the ongoing administrative history of Shenzhen, providing key dates in administrative restructuring. This translation interests as much for what it includes as what it does not; Shekou is notably absent from the administrative history of Shenzhen and this particular version of municipal historiography. Moreover, although this historiography shows when the government apparatus has made grabs to regulate and standardize local production, its unclear what happened in the outer districts when all this inner re-districting was going on. In other words, the official historiography of Shenzhen’s administrative history seems a straight-forward and uncomplicated process. Continue reading →