Zhongshan is a prefecture-level city in the south of the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong province in southern China. It is an open-up city in the coastal areas of China, bordering on Hong Kong, Marco, Gangzhou and Shenzhen, which are the international or regional centers of economy, trade and culture. With infrastructure and industrial deployment etc. connected or integrated with Hong Kong, Macao, Gangzhou and Shenzhen, Zhongshan city is an important node connecting the east and west banks of the Pearl River estuary, west Guangzhou and the Pan-Pearl River Areas.

The city was originally a county renamed in honour of Dr. Sun Zhongshan, who is also known as Sun Yat-sen and considered by many to be the "Father of modern China". Dr. Sun was born in Cuiheng village (now part of Nanlang Town) just outside of downtown Zhongshan. Prior to the name change, the city was called Xiangshan County and was part of Yuehai Circuit.

As a prefecture-level city of the Guangdong province. An uncommon administrative feature of Zhongshan is that it has no county-level division. The city government directly administers 18 towns (Banfu, Dachong, Dongfeng, Dongsheng, Fusha, Gangkou, Guzhen, Henglan, Huangpu, Minzhong, Nanlang, Nantou, Sanjiao, Sanxiang, Shaxi, Shenwan, Tanzhou, Xiaolan), four district offices (East District, South District, Shiqi District, West District, Wuguishan District) and a development zone (Zhongshan Torch Hi-tech Industrial Development Zone).

Zhongshan is a city with high-intensive level industries and complete industrial sectors, forming a batch of unique regional pillar industries of electronics and information, hardware, light-fixture making, electric machinery, chemical industry and medicine, textile and garments etc. With the newly-emerged industries developing fast in respect of equipment manufacturing, modem logistics, new & high technology, new energy and new materials etc. The city has 25 state-level industries bases. Zhongshan port is one of the top 100 ports in the world, its container handling capacity one of the 10 ports with container handling capacity surpassing one-million TEU.

In 2008, Zhongshan's GDP totaled RMB 140.9 billion. The population of permanent residents amounts to 2.8 million, with a per capita GDP of 56,034.