Thirteen Factories

Thirteen Factories
A reverse-glass export painting of the Thirteen Factories c. 1805, displaying the flags of Denmark, Spain, the United States, Sweden, Britain, and the Netherlands
Chinese
Literal meaning	The 13 Trading Houses
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Shísān Háng Yale Romanization Shŕsān Háng IPA [ʂɻ̩̌sánxǎŋ] Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization Sahp-sāam Hóng IPA [sɐ̀p sáːm hɔ̌ːŋ] Jyutping Sap⁶-Saam¹ Hong²

The Thirteen Factories also known as the Canton Factories, was a neighborhood along the Pearl River in southwestern Guangzhou in the Qing Empire from c. 1684 to 1856. These warehouses and stores were the principal and sole legal site of most Western trade with China from 1757 to 1842. The factories were destroyed by fire in 1822 by accident, in 1841 amid the First Opium War, and in 1856 at the onset of the Second Opium War. The factories' importance diminished after the opening of the treaty ports and the end of the Canton System under the terms of the 1842 Anglo-Chinese Treaty of Nanking. After the Second Opium War, the factories were not rebuilt at their former site south of Guangzhou's old walled city but moved, first to Henan Island across the Pearl River and then to Shamian Island south of Guangzhou's western suburbs. Their former site is now part of Guangzhou Cultural Park.

The "factories" were not workshops or manufacturing centers but the offices, trading posts, and warehouses of foreign factors, mercantile fiduciaries who bought and sold goods for their principals on a commission basis.

The foreign agents were known at the time as "supercargos" in English and as daban () in Chinese. This term's Cantonese pronunciation, taipan, only came into common English use after the rise of private trading from 1834 on. A private captain might be his own supercargo; a large East Indiamen might have five or more, which were ranked "chief supercargo", "2nd supercargo", and such. A team of supercargos divided their work, some overseeing sales, others tea purchases, silk purchases, and so forth. Permanent supercargos might divide their work by the order ships arrived. The bookkeepers who attended them were called "writers"; those serving with the ship, who also checked these accounts, "pursers".