This refers to the city clusters that encompass China's two special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao and nine cities of neighboring Guangdong Province: Dongguan, Foshan, Guangzhou, Huizhou, Jiangmen, Shenzhen, Zhaoqing, Zhongshan and Zhuhai. The gross economy of this greater bay area now ranks among the world's top four bay areas.

The idea of building a city cluster in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is an outcome of the constant integration of the cities in the Pearl River Delta region.

The Framework Agreement on Guangdong-Hong Kong Cooperation, signed in 2010, contained a key program to build a pleasant livable zone along the Pearl River estuary. Four years later in 2014, the Report on the Work of the Shenzhen Municipal Government set the goal of developing a bay area economy, and included Guangdong's city clusters located in the bay area and the nearby Hong Kong and Macao into a complete plan.

The white paper Joining Hands to Build a Silk Road Economic Belt and a 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road—Vision and Actions, jointly released in 2015 by China's National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Commerce, called for further cooperation with Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan to build the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. In 2016 China's 13th Five-year Plan contained a provision “to support Hong Kong and Macao to play an important role in the cooperation in the pan-Pearl River Delta and promote a platform for cooperation in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and cross-provincial cooperation.” In 2017, the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area appeared in both the Report on the Work of the Government and the Report to the 19th National Congress of the CPC, becoming a national strategy.

The Central Economic Work Conference in December 2017 listed the planning of the Greater Bay Area as a task for 2018. This marked the formal start of strategic planning.

The Greater Bay Area is important to China's Belt and Road Initiative and a new round of high-level opening-up. It is conducive to the exchanges and cooperation between China's interior and Hong Kong and Macao, to the two special administrative regions' participation in national development strategies, and to their competitiveness and long-lasting prosperity and stability.