Canton kept the Chinese name its neighbors gave up

Canton’s name does not come from Ohio. It reaches back to an 1830s American interest in trade and culture from China. When the township formed in 1834, it could not reuse a name already taken elsewhere. Local officials looked across the Pacific instead.

Canton, Nankin, and Peking townships were all named after places in China. Canton refers to the city now commonly called Guangzhou. Nankin later became Westland. Peking became Redford Township. Canton kept its original name.

That makes the name more than a label on a suburban map. Long before Canton became one of Michigan’s most internationally connected communities, its founders had already given it a name from halfway around the world.

Modern names can hide that old link. Canton was organized from Plymouth Township in 1834. Nankin and Peking were nearby townships, not neighborhoods inside Canton. Their later name changes make the pattern harder to see. Together, the three names show how national fashions and distant places entered Michigan’s early local maps.