there are many languages in china the predominant ones are mandarin and cantonese in the cantonese vernacular the chinese ideographs are read as nanking to be more precise namking and in mandarin it is read as nanjing when the european invaders first reached china their point of reference was mostly cantonese hence place names like peking nanking and canton they have all been romanised according to the hanyu pinyin romanisation system now and are beijing nanjing and guangdong according to the mandarin vernacular reading of the places