Humen
strait in China
The Humen, also known as the Bocca Tigris or the Bogue, is a narrow strait in the Pearl River Delta that separates Shiziyang in the north and Lingdingyang in the south. It is located near Humen Town in China's Guangdong Province. It is the site of the Pearl River's discharge into the South China Sea. It contains the Port of Humen at Humen Town. The strait is formed by the islands of Chuenpi (穿鼻, p Chuanbi) and Anunghoy (阿娘鞋, p Aniangxie; also called 威远, p Weiyuan) on the eastern side, and Taikoktow (大角头, p Dajiaotou) on the western side. Since 1997, the strait has been traversed by the Humen Pearl River Bridge. Bocca Tigris was the entry to China's only trading city, Canton.
Name
The Latinate Bocca Tigris is derived from the Portuguese Boca do Tigre, which is a calque of the Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese name 虎門, literally meaning "The Tiger Gate". The name Bogue is also a corruption of the Portuguese Boca.
The name comes from the impression given by Tiger Island, situated about 3.2 km (2.0 mi) above the Hengdang Islands in the middle of the strait, of a tiger couchant or at least of a tiger's head on its eastern side.
“Humen” enters the record as strait in China. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Humen, strait and China can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q477137. Authority coordinates are 22.802, 113.605. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1997.
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This entry incorporates text from “Humen” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.