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 Apr. 1914, by division of the apostolic prefecture of Kwangtung, which on the same date was raised to an apostolic CANTO (v.); on 18 Aug. 1915 it received its present name of S.; on 20 Feb. 1920 it ceded 9 civil sub-prefectures to Kaying (v.); on 11 Apr. 1946, with the establishment of the episcopal hierarchy in China, it was raised to a diocese suffragan to Canton. From the outset it has been entrusted to the Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris. It covers an area of 20,000 sq. km. As of 30 June 1947, out of a total population of 5,000,000 inhabitants, there were 30,000 Catholics, with 31 Chinese and 21 foreign priests.
Christianity in the territory of S. spread after 1873, and as early as 1884 there were 15,000 faithful; then the war between France, China, and Tonkin halted the movement of conversions for about ten years, after which it resumed and continued at a steady pace.