Shantou also known as Swatow, is a prefecture-level city on the eastern coast of Guangdong Province, and an administrative area of 2,064 square kilometers (797 sq mi). It is the fourth-largest most populated area in China, after Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing. Shantou, a city significant in 19th-century Chinese history as one of the treaty ports established for Western trade and contact, was one of the original Special Economic Zones of the People's Republic of China established in the 1980s, but failed to blossom like other cities such as Shenzhen, Xiamen and Zhuhai.