County history
On February 12, 1499 in the 12th year of the reign of the emperor Hongzhi during the Ming Dynasty, Taishan was founded as Xinning County from land in the southwest of Xinhui County. Xinning has also been romanized as Sinning, Hsinning, Hsînnîng, and Llin-nen.
From 1854 to 1867 a civil war broke out mainly in Taishan County between the Punti and Hakka people with disastrous results for both sides.
In 1914, Xinning was renamed Taishan to avoid confusion with the Xinnings of Hunan and Sichuan. Unfortunately it is now confused in English with Taishan (Mount Tai) in Shandong Province.
In March 1941, Japanese soldiers invaded Taishan's capital and killed nearly 280 people.
On April 17, 1992, Taishan's status was upgraded from county to county-level city.
In 2010, parts of the movie Let the Bullets Fly were filmed in Taishan.
Overseas Taishanese history
Owing to natural disasters and the colonization, Taishanese started to search for new lives overseas after the First Opium War. The migration of Taishanese to North America started with the Gold Rush. Many Taishanese came to California as contract labourers. Later, another peak happened during the construction of the transcontinental railways in the United States and Canada. In 1870, there were 63,000 Chinese in the United States, almost all in California. Due to discrimination and language barriers, the first Chinatown formed to allow Taishanese (or Chinese) to live along and help each other
