Shenzhen Special Economic Zone
The Shenzhen Special Economic Zone () is a special economic zone (SEZ) of China. One of four special economic zones (SEZ) established in May 1980, it was the first SEZ created by Deng Xiaoping, and, like the other three zones, was modeled after Ireland's Shannon Free Zone. Until 2010, the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone comprised four of the nine districts of Shenzhen City in Guangdong Province, namely Luohu, Futian, Nanshan, and Yantian, with a total area of 493 km2. In 2010, it was expanded to include the rest of the city, substantially increasing the geographical size of the SEZ. Population characteristics Before Shenzhen became a special economic zone in 1980, it existed as a small city containing only 310,000 residents and less than 30,000 workers. By the end of 2000, however, the population had grown to 4.33 million and its labor force to 3.09 million. By 2007, the official population count reached 8.6 million, of which only 2.1 million people were permanent residents, but it is difficult to estimate the exact population because of millions of unaccounted migrant workers, and the true population could have reached 12-14 million. Less than 30 percent of the population are permanent residents. These are