The high-speed rail system linking up the three cities is currently underway.

The United Nations published its biannual State of World Cities report on March 23, identifying the trend of developing mega-regions. The largest of these, says the report, is the Hong Kong-Shenzhen-Guangzhou region in China, home to 120 million people.

Experts comment that the Hong Kong-Shenzhen-Guangzhou mega-region is not a new term as in essence it dovetails with the "mega Pearl River Delta" concept frequently talked about by officials in the three cities.

With the implementation of the Pearl River Delta Development Plan, the cooperation and integration of the three cities are set to assume strategic importance. It's foreseeable that in the future, the citizens of the three cities will move freely from city to city and enjoy the merged public service resources of the three cities as a single metropolitan region, especially in business, education, and healthcare.

According to 2009 statistics, the three cities have a population of 26.14 million, an area of 6967.43 square kilometers, and a GDP of US$ 466 billion, far larger than any other cluster of cities in the world.

The high-speed rail system linking up the three cities, which is currently underway, is another symbol of the integration of the three cities. After the rail system is completed, a trip from Guangzhou to Shenzhen will take just about 20 minutes and a journey from Shenzhen to Hong Kong will take merely about 16 minutes. This means that the current travel time of 100 minutes between Guangzhou and Hong Kong will be reduced to 40 minutes.

(Translated by Guangzhou Association of Foreign Affairs Translators)