Zhaoqing (Chinese: 肇庆), alternately romanized as Shiuhing, is a prefecture-level city in Guangdong, China. As of the 2020 census, its population was 4,113,594, with 1,553,109 living in the built-up (or metro) area made of Duanzhou, Dinghu and Gaoyao. The prefectural seat—except the Seven Star Crags—is fairly flat, but thickly forested mountains lie just outside its limits. Numerous rice paddies and aquaculture ponds are found on the outskirts of the city. Sihui and the southern districts of the prefecture are considered part of the Pearl River Delta.

Formerly one of the most important cities in southern China, Zhaoqing lost its importance during the Qing dynasty and is now primarily known for tourism and as a provincial "college town".^{[citation needed]} Residents from Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and the other cities of the Pearl River Delta often visit it for weekend excursions. It is also a growing manufacturing center.

Zhaoqing was known to the Qin as Sihui (四会) and Han as Gaoyao (高要). It was renamed Duanzhou (端州) from its role as the seat of Duan Prefecture under the Sui. The present name, meaning "Beginning Auspiciousness", was bestowed on the area by Emperor Huizong of the Song in 1118. "Zhaoqing" is the pinyin romanization; the earlier Postal Map form "Shiuhing" derives from the name's Cantonese pronunciation.

Gaoyao was located on the south bank of the Xi River, named for its district's principal feature: the river's Lingyang Gorge (then known as "Gaoyao"). In the late 6th and early 7th centuries, the administration was relocated to Duanzhou on the opposite bank of the river, which became an important administrative and military center of the southern Sui Empire.^{[citation needed]}

The city wall of Zhaoqing [zh] was built in Duanzhou during the reign of Emperor Renzong of Song (1022–1063).^{[citation needed]}

When the Portuguese arrived in the 16th century, Zhaoqing was still an important center, serving as the seat of the Viceroy of Liangguang (Guangdong and Guangxi). Matteo Ricci's On the Christian Expedition among the Sinae tells of the early visits of Macanese-based Europeans to Zhaoqing. The Viceroy Chen Rui (陈瑞) summoned Macao's governor and bishop in the early 1580s, but the town sent its auditor Mattia Penella and the Italian Jesuit Michele Ruggieri in their place in 1582. After several false starts, Ruggieri and Matteo Ricci were allowed to establish their residence in the city, the first Jesuit mission house on mainland China, after Zhaoqing's governor Wang Pan learned of Ricci's skill as a mathematician and cartographer. Ricci drew the first modern Chinese map of the world in Zhaoqing in 1584. Ruggieri left for Rome in 1588 but Ricci remained until the next year, when a new viceroy expelled him from the city and obliged the Jesuits to relocate to Shaozhou (now Shaoguan).

During the Fall of the Ming in the mid-17th century, Zhaoqing served as the capital of the Prince of Gui's Southern Ming resistance, with the prince styling himself the Yongli Emperor. The town fell in 1650 and the prince relocated to Guilin and then various locations in Guangxi, Yunnan, and Kokang. The Jesuits Andreas Wolfgang Koffler and, later, Michał Boym stayed for some time at his court.

The Qing viceroy of Liangguang relocated to Guangzhou but Zhaoqing remained a commandery seat, overseeing the counties of Gaoyao, Guangning, Deqing, Sihui, and Kaijian and Fengchuan (since combined into Fengkai); Gaoming (now part of Foshan); Xinxing (now part of Yunfu); Heshan, Kaiping, and Enping (now part of Jiangmen); and Yangchun and Yangjiang (now part of Yangjiang's separate prefecture).