Why did Chen become the largest surname in Guangdong?

Chen is the most popular surname in China, ranking fifth among hundreds of surnames. But in Guangdong and Fujian, Chen is the first surname. Especially for Guangdong, a populous province, the population of Chen's surname exceeds 10%, which is very surprising, with a population of nearly 9 million.

Why is Chen so popular in Guangdong?

Chen Hugong is the ancestor of Chen, the founder of Chen State in Zhou Dynasty. Later generations took the country as their surname and called it Chen.

During the pre-Qin period, Chen mainly lived in the north of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River basin. Eight surnames entered Fujian in the late Western Jin Dynasty, which was an important event of population migration in China. Chen is one of the eight surnames. By the Southern Dynasties, Chen had become one of the four surnames in Fujian, mainly a descendant of Yingchuan School. Based on Fujian, the surname Chen began to spread to Zhejiang and Guangdong. After the establishment of Chen surname in the Southern Dynasties, Chen surname developed rapidly between the Yangtze River and the Pearl River Basin.

The second spread of Chen's surname in the south was that his father and son entered Fujian in the Tang Dynasty and became local governors. Its descendants became Chen Zhupai in Fujian, Guangdong, Taiwan Province and other places. After the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), a large number of Central Plains Chen family members immigrated to Fujian again, and since then, Chen has become the largest surname in Southeast China.

At the beginning of the Song Dynasty, a large number of Chen surnames entered the Meizhou area of Chaoshan, Guangdong Province from Fujian. At the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, the surname Chen from Henan entered Nanxiong, Guangdong via Jiangxi, and then spread from north to south, eventually forming the present surname Chen from Guangdong.

Therefore, there are two main schools of surname Chen in Guangdong, one is from Fujian and the other is from Henan.

At present, the surname Chen in Guangdong is mainly distributed in Chaoshan Meizhou area and Pearl River Delta area. The main counties of Chen surname are: Yingchuan County, runan county County, Xiapi County, Guangling County, Donghai County, Henan County and Jingzhao County. There are dozens of halls, such as Yingchuan Hall (the main hall number), Sanke Hall, Xiao Si Hall, Newspaper Hall, Juxing Hall, Guangyu Hall, Xiaoyou Hall, Weide Hall, Zunqin Hall and Sanzhi Hall.

I believe that when you walk on the streets of Guangdong, every person you see may have a surname of Chen, so don't think there is any difference, because Guangdong Chen doesn't say it casually.