Bao'an

Bao'an was the county that surrounded the original Shenzhen township before the SEZ was established in 1980. The county name persists for the western district, which encompasses both the original agricultural and fishing settlements and the manufacturing infrastructure that grew around them.

The district's economic function is the export of Shenzhen's manufacturing output. The freight logistics chain — factory to warehouse to container to ship or aircraft — is the primary activity of Bao'an's industrial zones. The Shenzhen port complex, shared with the adjacent Yantian district to the east, is one of the world's highest-traffic container ports; Bao'an's contribution is primarily the road and rail freight infrastructure linking the factories of the western Pearl River Delta to the Yantian deep-water berths.

Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport, which handles over 50 million passengers annually, is the district's most visited element for most travellers. Terminal 3, designed by Italian firm Studio Fuksas and opened in 2013, is one of the more architecturally notable airport buildings in China — a continuous wave form in glass and metal that creates a deliberately organic interior space. The earlier terminals remain in service alongside it.

The Bao'an coastal strip north of the airport has been developed as a residential and leisure zone, with promenades, parks, and mid-rise residential towers facing the Pearl River estuary and the Lantau hills of Hong Kong across the water. The waterfront parks are used by residents for morning exercise and evening walks and provide a calm contrast to the industrial interior of the district.