SWATON (SHANTOW), DIOCESE OF. — On the coast of the South China Sea, in the province of Kwangtung.
It was erected as an apostolic vicariate under the name of Chaochow on 6 April 1914, by division of the apostolic prefecture of Kwangtung, which on the same date was elevated to an apostolic vicariate under the name of Canton (q.v.); on 18 August 1915 it received its present name of Swatow; on 20 February 1920 it ceded nine civil subprefectures to establish the apostolic prefecture of Kaying (q.v.); on 11 April 1946, with the establishment of the episcopal hierarchy in China, it was elevated to a diocese, a suffragan of Canton. It has been entrusted from the beginning to the Paris Foreign Missions Society. It covers an area of 20,000 sq. km. As of 30 June 1947, out of a total population of 5,000,000, there were 30,000 Catholics, served by 31 Chinese and 21 foreign priests.
Christianity in the territory of Swatow spread after 1875, and by 1884 there were already 15,000 faithful; then the war between France, China, and Tonkin halted conversions for about ten years, after which the movement resumed and proceeded at a steady pace.