Shenzhen is a coastal city in the south of Guangdong Province, neighboring Daya Bay and Dapeng Bay to the east, Pearl River Estuary and Lingdingyang to the west, and Dongguan and Huizhou to the north and Hong Kong to the south. It is only 41 kilometers (25 miles) from Hong Kong. Benefiting from the superior location and China's reform and opening-up policy, Shenzhen has become a modern and international metropolis since 1978. Dubbed as 'China Silicon', today's Shenzhen gathers more than 14,000 high-tech companies including Huawei, Lenovo, and Tencent. It also becomes the innovation hub as a new generation of start-ups emerging, which makes it the most competitive and innovative city in China.

Although Shenzhen is located about a degree south of the Tropic of Cancer, due to the Siberian anticyclone it has a warm, monsoon-influenced, humid subtropical climate. Winters are mild and relatively dry, due in part to the influence of the South China Sea, and frost is very rare; it begins dry but becomes progressively more humid and overcast. However, fog is most frequent in winter and spring, with 106 days per year reporting some fog. Early spring is the cloudiest time of year, and rainfall begins to dramatically increase in April; the rainy season lasts until late September to early October.