Canton

According to Wikipedia, this name derived from the Portuguese Cantão – "a muddling of dialectical pronunciations of Guangdong (e.g., Hakka Kóng–tûng). Although it originally and chiefly applied to the walled city [from which foreigners were excluded until around 1860], it was occasionally conflated with Guangdong by some authors. It was adopted as the Postal Map Romanization of Guangzhou and remained in common use until the gradual adoption of pinyin. As an adjective, it is still used in describing the people, language, cuisine and culture of Guangzhou and the surrounding Liangguang region."

Guangdong is the state of which Guangzhou is the capital and most populous city.

The pinyin system (for romanising standard Chinese characters) was developed in the 1950s, based on earlier systems – including Wade–Giles, which originated in the late 19th century. It was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) adopted pinyin as an international standard in 1982, and was followed by the United Nations in 1986.