Since 1985, the Pearl River Delta has become one of the three coastal delta economic opening regions is China as our country began to carry out the open-door policy- This region includes two famous spetial economic zones (Shenzhen and Zhuhai) and one big opening city (Guangzhou) that is one of the fourteen coastal opening cities in China.With the open-door policy, the urbanizing process and the city-town growth in the region of the Pearl River Delta is speeding up. The aim of this paper is to present the effects of the open-door policy on the growth of city-towns in the region by analyzing the developing process of city-towns and non-agriculture populations at first, and then by measuring the transformation of function and the construction of city-towns as well as the changes of the spatial pattern of city-town system in the region.
