Thirty-five years ago, Shenzhen, China was just a fishing village outside of Hong Kong. In 1979, China's Communsist Party leader Deng Xiaoping designated the city the country's first Special Economic Zone, opening the region up to capitalism and foreign investment to fuel its development.
The magical transformation of the city from a fishing hub to a electronics manufacturing kingdom isn't lost on the country's inhabitants. In 2010, the 30th anniversary of the sweeping economic reforms, then Chinese president Hu Jintao called the city a "miracle."
Today, the boomtown is one of the fastest-growing cities in the world, with about 12 million residents. In 1979, just 30,000 people called Shenzhen home. The former angler's paradise along the Pearl River Delta is also considered southern China's financial capital, as it is home to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, massive tech firms, startups, and accelerators alike. And with its prowess as a global manufacturing hub, Shenzhen landed squarely atop Inc.'s list of top "Global Cities of the Future."