Beginning in the late 1990s economic boom, an influx of thousands of African traders and business people, predominantly from West Africa, arrived in Guangzhou and created an African community in the middle of the southern Chinese metropolis.[3] In 2012, it was estimated that there were more than 100,000 Africans living in Guangzhou, but most of them stayed for a very short time.[4] Since 2014, the city's African population has significantly declined due to strict immigration enforcement by Chinese authorities and economic pressures in home countries including depreciation of the Nigerian naira and Angolan kwanza.[5][6][7][8]